


Pangaea

by Raptor_Dash



Category: Jurassic Park (Movies), Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Amusement Parks, Angst, Angst and Humor, Animals, Dinosaurs, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family, It's better than the tags make it sound, Jurassic Park - Freeform, Love, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sarcasm, Science Fiction, Snark, Suspense, Tyrannosaurus rex - Freeform, seriously, triceratops
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-10
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-16 21:41:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 41,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2285409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raptor_Dash/pseuds/Raptor_Dash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For years, we thought that we were safe from the creatures from another era that had come so close to destroying us. Ian Malcolm thought that the only monsters left were in his mind, but something has been buried all this time, and it refuses to stay hidden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

Author’s note: Let’s get this out of the way: I do not own Dr. Ian Malcolm, John Hammond, Peter Ludlow or any part of the Jurassic Park franchise, any Universal theme park or any part thereof. They belong to Michael Crichton, David Koepp and Universal Entertainment. I am not profiting financially from creating or distributing Pangaea, nor do I intend to. This story is of my own creation, and it is not purported or believed to be part of Michael Crichton’s or David Koepp’s story canon. This story is for entertainment purposes only; any similarity to reality is purely coincidental. I do own my original characters, Anna Malcolm and Emma Ludlow, as well as this story and all parts thereof. All rights reserved to all authors and creators. I hope you enjoyed this disclaimer enough not to sue me. Trust me, I don’t have anything you’d want.

Cliché time—please rate and review! The more people that I know like this, the more I’ll post. Onward:

Chapter One

As always, the air in Santa Fe is dry and thick with dust; the heat beats down on everyone outside, even those inside cars. It’s late afternoon, making the weather all the worse. A huge cluster of cars, some in the parking lot, some already on the narrow road, honk at one another, everyone wanting to leave the sweltering heat. The sea of vehicles is mostly unmoving, until a red Cadillac at the start of the road begins to inch forward. It moves toward the road, slowly gaining speed, until a blue Ford truck swerves to the side and cuts in front of it. The dark figure in the red car, Ian Malcolm, slams on the brakes and curses. His car jolts forward and then halts, and his sunglasses almost fly off.

The one day he actually needs to get home by a certain time, the one damn day, is the day that there’s actually traffic out of the Santa Fe Institute. “It’s the football game,” he thinks, fuming. The UT Longhorns are playing the FSU Seminoles that night or something; he can’t be bothered with the details, the whole thing is so trivial. But almost every student on campus has been talking about it all day, so they all rushed as quickly as possible to get down the road and back to their houses, so everyone’s cutting everyone off, including the bastard in the car in front of him. 

He looks out at the long line of cars on the narrow road that spirals down a hill and runs over the details in his head once again. Get to his apartment at six. Carmen and Anna will be there at six-fifteen. He looks over at his dashboard clock; it’s five-thirty, he’s ten minutes late already. 

Malcolm rubs his left leg; the sudden jolt of pain that ran through it when he slammed on the brakes takes a moment to dull. As usual, he can distinctly feel several deep, tooth-mark-shaped scars there, but he barely even notices them anymore. They’ve become another part of his mostly unchanging appearance; he still has the same curly black hair, now with a small streak of grey, that he had years ago, the same dark brown eyes, basically the same black clothes and leather jacket. The same scars on his leg, arms and left hand. Even after he boarded a helicopter at the Dallas Airport ten years ago, in the summer of 1989, and his life took a huge and completely unexpected turn, he’s remained mostly unchanged, except for the scars. Externally, that is.

After a moment, the line of cars starts moving, and as he makes his way down the constantly curving road, a phrase pops into his head. “Grown men swatting little balls while the rest of the world pays to applaud.” It comes out of nowhere and he doesn’t recognize it at first, but then he recognizes it-- the way he used to describe sports whenever anyone mentioned them, back when he thought everyone needed to hear his opinions—and then it’s accompanied by an image, and a sound: a blonde woman in a pink shirt in a seat in front of him, and the whir of helicopter blades. He identifies the image quickly and shifts his thoughts to more pleasant things; there are certain memories that he’s gotten very adept at banishing from his mind.  
Instead, he just concentrates on the road.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Carmen isn’t happy; that’s immediately apparent. She’s wearing the same scowl that crosses her face whenever she sees Malcolm, but it’s a little deeper today. Her blue Ford sedan is parked parallel to the apartment building, emphasizing further just how quickly she plans to leave when her business is done. Her arms are wrapped protectively around a black-haired little girl, twelve years old but tall for her age, with big green eyes and the type of tan that can only be attained by living in the Southwest, who’s using one hand to grip a green plastic suitcase and the other to try to loosen her mother’s grip. Malcolm slows down a little as he passes them, grins when he sees that it’s indeed who he drove so fast to get to, parks in his assigned spot as quickly as possible and gets out of his car, grabbing a few paper-filled folders, just as Anna runs out to greet him.

They meet somewhere in the middle of the parking lot, and just as he does every time, Ian kneels down and hugs his daughter. They don’t say anything for a minute, just grip each other tightly, and then Anna laughs, lets go and says, “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, sweetie,” he says, and lifts up her suitcase. “I’ll get this. Did you get taller? You look taller.” 

“I don’t think so,” she says, and Ian notices that the little girl’s mother is standing behind her, sunglasses on and blonde hair pulled into a bun, hands on hips and attempting to show anger rather than her genuine annoyance.

“You’re late,” she says, and then, under her breath, “I don’t know what I expected.”

Ian flashes a sheepish smile and tells her, “Got caught in traffic.” That’s another hard-acquired skill: keeping peace with ex-wives. Something he’s always working on.  
She lets out a long-suffering sigh. “Her bedtime is nine. She can watch regular TV for an hour, after that, it has to be educational. She has a little bit of homework, and she needs to finish it before--”

“I remember,” he says. “I always do.”

She rubs her eyes with her thumb and middle finger. “Okay. I’ll be back on Sunday night to get her. Don’t forget, I live in Belen now, so call that landline if anything happens. I have someone house-sitting, so I’ll have them contact me in Dublin.” She gets down and puts a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Be careful, okay, Anna, sweetie? I’ll see you in a few days.”

“I’ll be fine, Mom,” the girl says. “Have fun at your convention.” She smiles. Carmen hugs her briefly, closing her eyes, and then gets back into her car, looking back at the two for a minute before driving away. Malcolm and Anna watch the sedan disappear down the street and turn a corner. Once it’s out of view, they turn towards the complex.

“So, ah, how are you?” he asks Anna, rolling her suitcase on the gravel. The wheels protest loudly, and he lifts it up, carrying it by the handle. “How’s school?”

“Pretty good,” she answers, putting her hands in her pockets. “I’m doing better in my advanced classes than I thought I would. Mom says we can get another pet if I have straight As at the end of the year, but she says it has to be something small.”

“Maybe she’ll buy you a tarantula,” he teases. “I know you— you love spiders.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Nah. I want a boa constrictor.”

“Well, it’d make a good friend for Harvey.” Harvey is her pet iguana, whom she adores. “Sure you, uh, want something you’d have to feed mice to?”

“They’re reptiles. They eat smaller animals,” she says matter-of-factly. “They’re just the way they are. I mean, I don’t want to watch it. But that’s how nature works sometimes.”

“That’s actually--” he starts, and turns his head to look at her; only then does he notice what she’s wearing. Black T-shirt, black shorts, black socks and sneakers. “Took a page from Dad’s book, did you?”

She shrugs. “Sort of. We learned about black-body radiation in my science class last week. I thought about animals with black fur or exoskeletons when I heard that—you know, like black-girdled lizards-- and I wondered if those were adaptations that developed because of black-body radiation. It’s been really hot out lately, so I’ve been wearing all black for a few days, to see if it’s true.”

Ian has a surge of pride that he can’t quite put into words. Instead, he smiles at her and ruffles her hair a little as they climb a short concrete flight of stairs. There’s a brown door at the top with the gold-painted numbers 204 nailed to it, which he unlocks and pushes open. Anna goes into the apartment first, and he shuts and locks the door behind him as he follows her. 

Malcolm used to stay in a smaller apartment back when he was only a frequent guest at the Institute, but now that he’s moved completely away from San Diego and now works at the Institute as a full-time researcher and weekly lecturer, he lives in one he can inhabit year-round. There’s two bedrooms, a study, a kitchenette and a somewhat spacious living room; the latter two are downstairs, basically the same room, while the rest are up a small wooden flight of steps. It seems roomier than it is, though; there are only two stone columns between the living room and the kitchen, no door, and there are three windows in the living room. Anna takes a minute to look around and analyze whether anything has changed in the month that she hasn’t been here; the walls are still the same antique-looking shade of yellow, there are still wooden rafters holding up a wood-paneled ceiling above the hardwood floor, there’s still no fire in the stone fireplace that takes up the center of the room and the place is just as messy as ever, with books and papers on almost every flat surface, clothes draped across the backs of chairs and Post-It notes scrawled with half-formed thoughts stuck on the table, the fridge, the walls and a lampshade. Contented, she grabs her suitcase and heads upstairs with it; Malcolm follows, still carrying his folders. 

“I have to make a phone call,” he tells his daughter. “It’ll just take a minute, um, and then we’ll have dinner, okay?” He kisses her forehead, and she smiles and runs down the carpeted hallway to the guest room, rolling her suitcase behind her. He looks at her for a minute, and then turns, goes into his study and collapses into a plush swivel chair, dumping the pile of papers and folders on his desk beside his computer. He closes his eyes for a minute and sighs with relief; he’s been standing up for hours today, and giving a lecture is always exhausting, no matter how invigorated he is during it.

After a minute, he sits up, digs through a pile of papers and science magazines to find a certain plastic rectangle, puts his black cord phone to his ear and dials Charlotte Lewis’s number. It rings twice, there’s a crackle and he hears Charlotte say congenially, “Charlotte Lewis, Santa Fe Institute Living Systems Department.”

“It’s Ian,” he says.

“Hi, Dr. Malcolm,” she says, noticeably less formal. “You must have given one hell of a lecture today. I saw a crowd walking out past my office, and the general feeling seems to have been excitement.”

“That would be excitement at being let out early,” he says. “Listen, I only have three more weeks planned out. Do you—do you have any suggestions for my next series after this one’s finished? Because I’ve been doing a little research.”

She pauses. “On what?”

“The Permian extinction. Its possible causes, the, ah, involvement of the Malcolm Effect, all of that.”

She sighs. “I really don’t know. There’s… there’s not as much interest in extinction as there used to be. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”

Ian feels a little twinge of fear and quickly suppresses it. “No, I don’t.”

“People here want to study biological systems, but they’re really more interested in how they grow and develop. Working biological systems, ones that are still around. Ones they can go and observe for themselves. Sure, people listen to you, but there’s only so long you can talk about extinction.”

There’s another pause. Ian rubs his left temple with his thumb. “That’s—that’s not exactly my area, Charlotte.”

“I know it isn’t. But you do study biological systems.”

“I know, but… There are paleontologists at the Institute. There are people there that are still, ah, still wondering how the dinosaurs died. They’ll be making theories about extinction until the next meteor hits. There will al—always be an interest in what I study.”

Over the phone, a barely-audible male voice yells something in the background, and Charlotte shouts back, “I’m on the phone. Tell them to wait!” She pauses and speaks into the receiver again. “I’m not giving you a definite answer either way, Ian. But life needs to keep changing to survive. Maybe that’s what you need to do.” She pauses. “Consider it. Do some more research. I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“See you,” he echoes, and there’s a crackle as she hangs up.

He puts the phone back into its cradle, leans his elbows on the desk and puts his face in his hands. He stays like that for a moment, thinking, pondering. And, more than anything, worrying. He does study in biological systems. But extinction is his specialty. He’s been doing lectures and teaching classes on it for years. And now he’s facing the possibility of having to change that. Having to do a lot more research, maybe even field work; having to give up what he loves, what he thought he’d spend the rest of his life doing. And if he doesn’t do that, he might have to give up working at the Institute. He can’t envision doing that. He doesn’t even want to consider it.

Because the Santa Fe Institute is unquestionably where Ian belongs. And, other than his family, it just might be all that he has left.

He makes himself get up, thinking of his daughter. He’ll worry about this later. He can’t sit in his office and think about what he could possibly do his next lecture series on— self-organizing behavior in insect colonies? His theory from when he’d just left college, about emergence in relation to rainforest fauna? That theory he developed a few years ago, the one he actually performed experiments for, the one he almost showed to InGen but didn’t, no, no one would be interested in that, it isn’t applicable enough—when something much more important is downstairs, waiting for him to make dinner. He makes his way down the staircase and heads across the living room, towards the kitchenette, glancing at Anna. She’s sitting upright on the couch, watching television. “Hey, Dad,” she calls out.

“Hi,” he says. “I, um, haven’t been to the supermarket in a while, but I have a few things left in the freezer. You still like macaroni and cheese, right?”

“Dad, come here,” she says. 

Malcolm strides across the room again, standing behind the couch. “That was fast. Okay if we eat in, ah, half an hour or so?”

Anna points at the screen. “Look at this.” It’s the end of a commercial; a male narrator is saying, “—the adventure of a lifetime.” There’s a shot of a dinosaur—Ian recognizes it right away, it’s Triceratops horridus— walking around behind a glass wall. On the other side of the glass, a little boy and a smiling mother reach out, as if to touch the animal. “CGI,” Ian automatically thinks. “Good CGI. Right? Of course.”

There’s a shot of a swamp full of parasaurs, stegosaurs and triceratops, and the camera pans up to show the Universal Studios logo. The narrator’s next words take a moment to sink in after Malcolm hears them. “The only place in the universe to see living dinosaurs is here, at Pangaea—only at Universal Studios Orlando.” A CGI Tyrannosaurus snaps at the camera, and the screen goes black for a moment, and then switches to a pastel-colored commercial for laundry detergent.

“They have real dinosaurs,” Anna says, looking up. “It said they made them in a lab. Some scientists somewhere. Dad. Those weren’t fake.” Malcolm barely hears her; it’s like she’s miles away. His head starts to swim, and he stares at the TV, suddenly unable to breathe.

“Oh my God,” he whispers. “They really did it. Oh my God.”


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Ian puts the pill bottle back on the table and puts his right hand back on his forehead, trying to concentrate on the sounds of the cicadas outside. He still feels sick to his stomach, not helped at all by the defrosted lasagna he just ate, and the Advil he just swallowed probably won’t kick in for a while. And his left leg hurts again. That always seems to be a symptom of this kind of thing.

“Are you okay, Dad?” Anna asks, pushing aside her empty plate. “Do you need me to get any more medicine or anything?”

Ian sighs. “I’m fine, Anna. I promise. Just fine…” The words are empty, but he needs to say them— she’s never seen him panic like this before. He’s usually very calm under pressure, but there are exceptions.

Anna thinks for a second. “They didn’t have any carnivorous dinosaurs, I think. Just herbivores.”

“Except that rex at the end.”

“They must have shown all the species they have. It’s just Triceratops, Stegosaurus, a couple of ankylosaurs and an Iguanadon, I think. And a few hadrosaurs.”

“Did it say who made the animals? Did any names come up?”

Anna shakes her head. “They just showed a couple of scientists with test tubes and one watching a baby dinosaur hatch. Something about the miracle of cloning.”

“And you’re absolutely sure these are real dinosaurs. Not robotic ones, not puppets, not one of those damn, ah, chickenosaur things.”

“Nope. Real live dinosaurs.”

“Nothing about a company called InGen?”

Anna gets up. “I’ll grab my laptop. Universal definitely has a website.” She strides across the kitchen and up the stairs.

Ian lets his hand drop to the table and considers taking another Advil, or maybe even some, just a little, of the morphine in the first-aid kit in the upstairs closet. It’s a stressful enough situation, he doesn’t need any more pain or nausea or horrifying flashbacks on top of—no. He pushes the bottle away and avoids looking at it. He refuses to let himself go down that road again. 

Anna comes back down, a small silver laptop bouncing in her arms, and sits primly down at the table next to her father, setting it down and opening it; he smiles and says, “Thanks, sweetheart.” The Universal Orlando website is already pulled up; under the huge logo, there’s a CGI rendering—no, probably a photo—of a woman in a lab coat, holding a duck-billed hadrosaur that appears to be a baby. Under the photo is a headline, reading, “LIVING DINOSAURS AT PANGAEA!” and beneath it, “Using cutting-edge technology, our scientists have done the impossible: brought legendary beasts back to life. Click to learn more.” Ian reaches over and clicks on the headline.

Another screen pops up, with photos of children playing with intrigued-looking herbivorous dinosaurs lining the top. The text reads,

“Here at Universal Orlando Resort, we are now offering the opportunity of a lifetime: to see, hear and even touch the beasts that ruled a bygone era. Using the latest technology in genetics and cloning, scientists from the InGen Corporation have teamed up with Universal Orlando to open up a one-of-a-kind experience from a land long ago. Here at our park, we are now home to a unique environment populated by dinosaurs—but not the kind that would cause any danger to ourselves and our guests. Using specialized genetic engineering, we have created herbivorous (plant-eating) dinosaurs; these gentle animals are more docile than their ancestors, and they are entirely friendly. So friendly, in fact, that we will soon allow guests to interact with them. Imagine petting a Triceratops. Think of seeing a Stegosaurus or playing with a Parasaurolophus. These dreams and more will soon come true in our all-new attraction, Pangaea—only at Universal Orlando.”

Malcolm stares at it for a minute, combing it for any extra information. There’s a ‘Buy Tickets’ button and a ‘Learn More About Dinosaurs’ link, but other than that, there doesn’t seem to be anything to be learned about the park. Except—he only notices it when he skims over the paragraph—two words. They jump out, and other words and memories associated with them leap to Ian’s mind. The intermingling smells of jungle mist and blood, the sound of pounding footsteps and screaming, the slapping of tall grass against his skin and a sickening amount of adrenaline. And a phone call, one he’s had to put effort into disregarding, and a certain name—

The shrill sound of a ringing phone blares from the kitchen counter. Ian gets up and makes his way over to it, slightly limping, and Anna sits and begins reading the website. He lifts the white cord phone and presses it to his ear. “Ian Malcolm. Hello?”

“Dr. Malcolm,” a smooth female voice says, and Ian freezes. “This is Emma Ludlow. Head of InGen Corporation. We’ve spoken before. Remember?”

“…Yes.”

“Wonderful. I don’t have much time to chat, so let’s get straight to the point. I assume you’ve seen the new Universal Orlando TV spot?”

“Unfortunately.”

“And what did you think?”

“I’m not a big fan.”

The woman, Emma, laughs a little. “I’m not surprised. But you have to admit, Doctor, you did say we’d never do it. And I did watch three baby maisauria hatch this morning.”

“Growing in a lab, hatching and isolating infants from the only species whose defining quality is caring for their own young,” he says. “What a wonderful job you’re doing of following what nature intended.”

“As a matter of fact, you couldn’t be more wrong,” Emma cuts in. “But I don’t have time for this. I know you’ll be opposed to this park, no matter how successful it is for how long. I won’t argue with you, because even when I gave you an opportunity that millions of other scientists would kill for, you were so attached to your own philosophies that you refused to see what was in front of you. But I’m not like you. I believe in second chances. So, while it’s too late for you to be a consultant to Pangaea, I’ll still allow you to endorse it.”

“Endorse it? Why the hell would I endorse this mistake?”

“Because your support would mean the most to the public. You were there for the… incidents on Isla Sorna and San Diego. You were the one who wrote those books about what happened on those islands. For the past few years, you’ve been in the public eye, and the whole time you’ve done nothing but decry what John Hammond did and prostelyze about how dangerous and terrible cloning is. Well, frankly, now we’ve proved you wrong. And you’ve seen a similar project—similar, but not identical—and how it worked. So if you of all people make a statement and tell the public that our park is nothing like Hammond’s and that it’s completely foolproof, everyone will believe you.”

Anna looks up and points to her mouth, looking questioningly at Ian; he shakes his head no, he doesn’t want her to loudly ask him for something so he can get out of a rambling phone call, although they’ve done that a few times before. “You’re exactly right. I’ve seen both of Hammond’s parks, and I’ve seen exactly what they were—what they were like and what was wrong with them. And I see exactly the same problems in your little dinosaur swamp.”

Emma sighs. “I could spend all day disproving you, but I won’t. Here’s the deal. We need an expert to come to Florida and spend a few days looking over the park. I’ve already told you why you’re InGen’s first choice. But you’re not essential; we could find someone else in an instant. We’d prefer you to come and look the place over. You could inspect the facilities as much as you wanted, you could spend as much time with the animals as necessary. Once you were done, we’d negotiate your pay and then begin publicity. You could even bring a guest so we could see how it fares with our target audience. Maybe one of those kids of yours.” Ian throws a sidelong glance at Anna; of course Emma knows he has kids, everyone does, there’s no reason he should be uneasy. “Transportation to Florida would be paid for, of course, and we’d throw in a trip to Islands of Adventure. What do you say?”

Malcolm hesitates. “I--”

“Listen,” Emma cuts in. “I’ve booked a flight to Orlando from Santa Fe Municipal tomorrow at seven P.M. Two first-class seats. I’ll have someone wait for you at the Orlando Airport when your plane lands. If you’re not there, I’ll find someone else to endorse it. But think about this, Doctor. A chance to have your name attached to the most innovative attraction in the world.”

“An attraction like that already exists. It’s been quarantined for six years. Didn’t you see it on the news?”

“Consider it. All expenses paid and no possibility of being harmed. Your tickets are already reserved.” She chuckles a little. “You could come and see life find a way.” There’s a click, and the line goes dead.

Malcolm hangs the phone up. “Everyone uses that line,” he says.

“Who was that?” Anna asks. Ian sighs, walks over and sits down next to her, limping more heavily and resenting the medicine for taking so long to kick in. “That,” he says, “was Emma Ludlow. You, uh, know who Peter Ludlow was?”

“He was eaten by that T-Rex and its baby,” she says matter-of-factly. “They broke his leg and then tore him apart. The guys on the boat found his bones after the San Diego Incident.”

Ian swallows and keeps his voice as steady as he can. “He was the head of the InGen Corporation, after John Hammond was. How did you hear about that?”

“I read Dr. Harding’s book. There wasn’t much detail about it in yours.”

“I thought I told you there was no need to know the gory details.”

“I wanted to learn about feeding behavior,” she says. “Who’s Emma Ludlow? His wife?”

“His daughter,” Ian tells her. “Apparently she took over the company after— well, she runs it now. I don’t know how she salvaged it after San Diego, but, ah, apparently she got InGen up and running again. A long time ago, five years, I guess, she called me on the phone and asked if I wanted to be a consultant on a project involving--involving dinosaur cloning. She said it held a lot of promise and that they were planning a theme park attraction, using what previous InGen scientists had discovered.”

Anna sits up straighter. “You knew about this?”

“It was still in the beginning stages then. I told her I wouldn’t be a part of it, and I gave her all kinds of valid reasons why--why the park would be a disaster, if it even made it to its opening. I said that judging by InGen’s track record, no one would go near the place, ah, even if it wasn’t like Hammond’s other parks, and the way she made it sound, it would be. They called a few times after, trying to convince me, but eventually they gave up. I assumed they’d either listened to me or run into enough roadblocks that the park wouldn’t happen.”

“I just don’t get it,” Anna says. “Everyone already knows about what happened the last time someone opened a dinosaur theme park. And there are already living dinosaurs, and no one wants to go near them. Why would anyone clone more of them?”

“I have no idea. To be honest, I, ah, thought at least someone would learn their lesson after the Incident, at least the head of the company responsible. But even I’m not right all the time.”

“And they’re making another park anyway.”

Ian sighs. “Yep.”

“Why did she call you, then? To rub it in your face?”

“Partially. She also wants me to come to Orlando and endorse the place.”

“Visit the park?” Anna grins widely. “That’s great! Are you doing it?”

“Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice,” Ian says grimly. “If I don’t go, they’ll get some paleontologist who’ll fawn over the dinosaurs for a day or two and, uh, and then tell them to open the park so everyone can see the magic of the Mesozoic. Or they’ll just hire someone from another biotech company to spit out some statistics and do commercials in a lab coat. And I’ve talked to Ellie Sattler and Alan Grant a couple of times since I got that phone call— and Sarah, too, ah, of course-- and any of them would have mentioned it to me if they’d gotten a call too. No, I--I have to go. If my predictions are correct, and this park is the way I think it is, I need to go and do as much as I can to shut it down. Or at least do my part to control the chaos.”

“You can’t control chaos,” Anna reminds him. “Especially not if the system is made up of animals. If it’s a chaotic system, it’s unpredictable. You can’t control it. I think.”

Despite his heightening worry, Malcolm can’t help but smile. Anna never shows much interest in chaos theory, but she does absorb information well when he teaches her about it. “You’re right. But that’s not what I mean. I, ah, I made a lot of predictions after I heard about Pangaea. The idea sort of inspired me. Actually, that’s the last time I can remember doing original research that wasn’t, ah, about extinction. Well, I did some research and a few—well, a lot—of experiments, since the idea of the park got me interested.”

“Experiments on what?”

“It had to do with the interaction of natural systems and mechanical systems. I actually worked, uh, pretty hard on it. I found a strange attractor for the behavior, um, of a natural system confined within a mechanical system. I did hundreds-- hundreds of experiments with computer models and found out how a balanced system would react, one with just herbivores, one with just carnivores… I could go on. After a while, I applied my theory to a system like Pangaea’s. It didn’t take long to find a conclusion: that park is a mistake. It’s bound to fail. On a smaller scale than Jurassic Park, perhaps, since what they’re doing isn’t, ah, isn’t entirely the same. But, like you said, they’ve created a chaotic system, and Pangaea can end in nothing but complete and utter chaos. And when everything goes to hell, as it inevitably will, at least one person should be there who knows what they’re doing.”

Anna nods slowly. “All right. When do we leave?”

“My plane leaves tomorrow at seven. I should only need the weekend, maybe another day or two to oversee it when they shut down the park. Who would you want to stay with? I think you’re old enough to sleep over at a friend’s house, who should I--”

“Wait,” she says. “Aren’t I coming with you?”

“You are not. There is absolutely no way I’m letting you go to that park. Where--where did you even get that idea?”

“You have custody this week. You’re supposed to watch me, not someone else. I can’t stay with Mom because she’ll be at her convention, and you can’t just dump me at home and take off. Not like you did when I was little.”

A pang of regret shoots through Ian, and he angrily slams the laptop shut. “Don’t bring that into this. I’ve explained it to you before. I had to go somewhere important and I couldn’t have taken you. And I--I didn’t plan on almost dying while I was there. That’s the end of it.” 

Anna rolls her eyes. “Sure.”

“Don’t you roll your eyes at me. Besides, I’m looking out for your best interests, just like I’m supposed to. You’ll be a lot safer at a friend’s house. No danger of being eaten there.”  
“I’ll be okay, Dad. I promise. I’ll stay with you the whole time and I won’t touch anything. Please? It’d be a good learning opportunity. You know I want to be a herpetologist, and it’d be great to see the dinosaurs and learn abo--”

He stands up, pushing his chair in. “I don’t care if it’d be worth your Ph. D. That place is a death trap. You--you are staying here, period.”

She gets to her feet, pushing her chair to the side. “I’m not a baby, Dad.” 

“You’re right, you’re not. That wouldn’t make it any less terrible if you ended up as something’s lunch.”

“What are you so afraid of?” She steps closer to him, her eyes blazing. “It’s just a bunch of herbivores. It might not go wrong. You don’t know everything.”

“I know a lot more about this than most people,” he says firmly. “And I know enough about dinosaurs, and--and I care enough about you, that I don’t want you going anywhere near them. You’re staying home and that’s final.” He looks at his watch. “It’s eight forty-five. Go brush your teeth and get ready for bed. I’ll call your friend Marissa, she’ll want to have a sleepover.”

Anna storms past him. She turns her face away, and her voice quavers as she says, “I hate you.” She runs up the stairs and out of sight.

Ian watches her go. He has two other kids, another daughter and a son, both teenagers, so this sentiment has been expressed towards him before. He’s heard it enough times, even from Anna, that he’s usually not bothered by it. This time, though, he’s still hearing Emma’s voice, and unexpectedly, a few faces from the past flash into his mind’s eye. Old regret comes back as he watches her go, so familiar that it’s become emotionless, repeated words, so worn out that they’ve lost their meaning. Somehow, though, it’s a little fresher now, and he can’t help thinking, “You should.”


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Ian’s back in the Jeep. Every inch of it is familiar, although when he looks closely at specific parts, the details are blurred. Grant is still next to him, frozen in terror just as he is, staring at the horror unfolding in front of them. The ground shakes, the dashboard rattles, and the air is filled with screaming and a terrifying, otherworldly roar.  
Some tiny part of him is familiar enough with this place to know that he’s dreaming, he must be, but the rest of him seizes up in complete panic. He stares forward, heeding Grant’s whispered command to stay completely still, and watches as the gigantic tyrannosaurus, scales glistening with rain, claws digging into the mud, plunges its head into the underbelly of the Jeep in front of them, trying as hard as it can to grab the two children within. 

The smell reaches his nostrils, even though the windows and doors are closed. It’s that carnivore smell, so sickeningly familiar, the scent of decay, rotting flesh, death. It makes him sick to the stomach and halts the thought that he had just a second ago. Those kids are helpless, separated from their deaths by only an inch or two of metal, and he should do something to help, but even sensing the gigantic carnivore makes him freeze in terror.

Grant is going out to distract the animal, he must be; Ian has the sense that he’s on the way to opening the door. But he moves so slowly. He moves in tiny increments, as if time is slowed down, but only for him; outside, the dinosaur is still attacking the car, and Ian doesn’t have any sense of time going any slower. Finally, a high-pitched scream reaches his ears, and he’s acutely aware of the two children, only a few feet away, whose lives are in danger. What if those were his kids in there? He’d go out to help them, no matter what. Ian tries to get up, fights to open the door, but he can’t move an inch. He’s stuck in the passenger’s seat, and he has no choice but to look out the windshield and watch.

The rex hesitates for a second, and for one heart-stopping moment, it turns and looks directly at the second Land Rover, and stares straight into Malcolm’s eyes. He holds his breath, still trying to get up—maybe he can distract it, Alan isn’t moving, he has to—but the predator goes back to its prey. Ian puts every bit of his strength into getting up, pushing the door open even an inch, but it’s to no avail. Tim and Lex’s screams pierce the air, even louder than before, as the metal underbelly of the car tears open and the rex’s head dives in. Even as the dinosaur keeps pulling up ragged bits of crimson flesh and Malcolm keeps screaming and trying as hard as he can to get up, the kids still let out one unbearable, gut-wrenching scream, and the smell of blood is heavy in the air, and it just won’t stop until—

Ian jolts awake to find himself sitting up. His head swims, he hears his heart pounding and that horrible screech still ringing in his ears, and he smells sweat. It takes a minute for him to get his bearings, to realize that what he just went through was and always will be just a dream, but even then, he doesn’t entirely believe it. “That one was new,” he thinks, closing his eyes and steadying his breathing. It’s not by any means an uncommon occurrence for him to have nightmares about Isla Nublar, about everything that did happen and everything that possibly could have. This time, it’s a blend of both. The kids being attacked by the rex, and their being eaten by it. 

“It isn’t real,” Ian reassures himself, knowing exactly how wrong he is. Of course the kids didn’t die; he’s visited them a few times over the last ten years. Their external wounds healed quickly, and their new fears and once-severe PTSD seem to be lessening. But—and this is one of those thoughts that Malcolm can usually suppress, but one that can strike and lodge itself in his brain when he’s vulnerable or can’t think straight—if they had been, it probably would have been his fault. 

Malcolm was in that car with another person when the rex escaped. He was trying to stay alive just as much as anyone else, and Grant got up pretty quickly when he saw that the kids needed help, he reasons to himself in the darkness. Malcolm would have gotten up to help them if he had had the chance. And he did, when he thought Grant’s distraction wasn’t working. He did it—maybe not fast enough, but he did it. He took a flare and made the tyrannosaur leave the kids alone. So he isn’t responsible for the Lex and Tim getting hurt. Right?

Still, though, he can’t help wondering if things could have been different. What if he had struck a flare as soon as the rex started heading for the other Jeep? What if he had distracted the animal before Grant did; what if he led it somewhere else, far enough from the others to allow them to escape, or he ran towards it and took his chances with its obvious appetite? It didn’t actually try to eat anyone else after it ate Gennaro; would everyone else—everyone, Ian helplessly thinks, more worthy to have lived—have gotten away unharmed if he’d been eaten instead? That’s another death Malcolm feels overwhelmingly accountable for: Gennaro’s. But the kids mean more to him, and thoughts of them and the trauma they went through haunt him more often, especially in times like these, when he’s alone in the dark with old guilt staring him in the face.

Ian thinks about these things sometimes, when he can’t stop himself from doing it. But this time, his wondering is less about the what-ifs and more about the sickening reminder he got from that dream and what he can’t stop accusing himself of, even after all these years. That he was selfish, only looking out for his own needs by staying in the car as long as he did, and because he couldn’t be there to protect them, because he wasn’t there with them when he should have been, a little boy and girl got injured and might have been dead were it not for Grant. That because of him, Tim and Lex almost died.

As Malcolm gets out of bed, puts on his slippers and quietly exits his bedroom, he’s only thinking about one thing: something terrible happened to kids that depended on him because he wasn’t there when they needed him, and there’s no way he’s going to let that happen again.

He walks down the carpeted hallway and slowly opens a door two doors away from his bedroom. It’s much less of a generic guest room now that it serves a specific purpose; the girl sleeping in the small, green-sheeted bed has personalized it more and more as she’s stayed more and more often. She’s done a few paintings, all abstract except for one of a salamander and another of the pyramid at Chichen Itza, which are hanging on the walls. Various stuffed animals adorn the laundry hamper and closet, and there’s a tiny desk on the corner with one of Anna’s clarinets resting on it. There’s a tiny LED clock on it, which reads 4:22 A.M. Ian looks around for a moment to make sure he’s not about to step on anything, and then kneels down by the bed and reaches out, touching his daughter’s shoulder. “Hey,” he says softly; she doesn’t stir. He gives her a little shake, and she moves her arm. “Anna. It’s just me.” She stirs a little more, and after a moment, slowly sits up and yawns. 

She takes a minute to open her eyes, and then looks over at him. “Dad?”  
“Yeah. I--”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “That was really immature, what I said earlier. I don’t hate you. I was just mad.”

He smiles and ruffles her hair. “I know you don’t.”

“Can I--” She yawns again. “Can I stay at Jackie’s house instead? I think that would be easier. She lives closer than—”

“No,” he tells her. “I changed my mind. You’re coming with me.”

This takes a minute to sink in, and then she sits up straight. “Really?”

“Yeah. You still want to go?” 

“Of course!” She laughs a little. “All right! We’re going to Florida!”

“That’s right,” he says grimly. “Pack your damn Mickey ears.”


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Clouds, Ian reflects, look like cities. When you’re below them, they just look like rounded formations, sometimes flat on the bottom. But from above, you can see their tops, how they reach into spires that tower above the rest of the milky white landscape. As he stares out the window, the closer he looks at the cloud formations, the more it looks to him like he’s gliding above a whole new world that’s normally hidden but still floating right above everyone’s heads. That sense of wonder only stays for a second, though, and then he starts wondering about how much impact their plane and others are making on those formations, on their shapes and how fast they glide. He has a friend at Berkeley named Buldwen, another chaotician, who could probably tell him. He remembers seeing a strange attractor created by Buldwen that described cloud formation patterns once; it was—  
“Complimentary drinks?” Malcolm looks up; a petite woman in a flight attendant’s uniform is standing in the aisle with a huge, metal drink cart, smiling blandly. 

He looks over at his daughter; she’s working intently on something. Not looking up, she shakes her head. “No, thanks,” he tells the stewardess, smiling briefly. She pushes her cart forward, and Malcolm turns his attention back to Anna. “You’re working hard on that. Is that, ah, a diary?” She nods, pushing a curl that’s fallen out of her bun behind her ear. “What are you doing? Picking the lock?”

“Yeah,” she says, and a second later, she smiles widely, lifting up a small book with a green plastic cover, the words TOP SECRET written on it in cursive and a tiny padlock, which is open. “Look at that. Only took a minute and a half.”

He looks at what she’s holding in her other hand. “With a bobby pin, no less. Impressive.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever need to do that, but it’s helpful,” Anna says. She pulls a tiny silver key out of her pocket, inserts it into the lock and twists and stuffs it in her pocket again. Then she looks down at the bobby pin in her hand, bent and twisted out of shape. “Guess I can’t use this anymore.” She sticks the pin in the pocket on the seat in front of her, and then the small green notebook.

“Make sure you don’t leave that here.”

“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “I just doodle in it. I don’t write.”

“Any particular reason?”

She shakes her head silently. “I just bought it for the lock.”

Malcolm doesn’t quite believe this—he has vague thoughts about trust issues with adults—but Anna’s diverted her attention to digging through her carry-on, and this isn’t the time to press the issue. He watches her for a second, taking in her calmness and contentment. He realized as soon as he saw her in the morning that it was a mistake to take her; he considered taking back his reckless decision, but instantly heard two young, wounded voices in his head, one saying, “You can’t just dump me at home and take off. Not like you did when I was little,” and the other, “But you never keep your word!” And then the realization hit that this wasn’t just about Tim and Lex— he realized how willing he always is to abandon his kids and run off whenever an opportunity comes up, how often he does it, and how hurt all of them are by it. No way is he doing that again. So he drove his car to the airport with his daughter in the passenger’s seat, picked up two tickets at check-in and boarded a United flight to Orlando with her, not saying a word about the terrible apprehension deep in his gut. The whole way there, he promised himself over and over that he won’t let Anna out of his sight until they get back home, and he has no intention of breaking that.

Ian glances across the aisle once again at the young woman sitting in the blue plush seat parallel to his. She has a fair amount of freckles and red hair that looks very meticulously straightened, and she seems fairly displeased—no, more like anxious—with her surroundings. She taps her right foot in a quick, distinct rhythm and runs her index finger back and forth on the laptop bag on her lap. Throughout the flight, she’s ordered two glasses of orange juice, checked something on her laptop and looked disappointed five times, and flipped through SkyMall too often to count.

Judging by her black dress pants and blue blouse, Ian silently decides that she must be either a businesswoman or a rich lady on her way to doing whatever it is that rich people do for a living. Neither of those are the types of women that he’s usually involved with, but he can appreciate an occasional challenge. He turns around in his seat and reaches out to tap her shoulder, but decides against it and says, “You, ah, wouldn’t happen to be going to a convention, would you?”

The woman quickly turns and looks at him, looking anxious for a second, then relaxing when she sees his face. “Yes, I’m going to an engineers’ conference.”

“I thought so,” he says, leaning forward. “Conference season. Every flight this time of year is full of people in business suits.” She smiles politely. “I’m—I’m Ian, by the way.”

“Vanessa,” she says.

“So.” He lifts the armrest and turns further, putting his legs out in the aisle. “What kind of engineering do you do? I know there’s--”

“’Scuse me.” A shortish man with close-cropped brown hair steps over Ian, and Vanessa moves to the window seat. The man takes the seat across from Ian and asks Vanessa, “Have they emailed you the video yet?”

“Honey, I don’t know what the matter is,” Vanessa tells him urgently. “They said it would be done by now. How am I supposed to give my presentation if…”

Ian tunes them out, turns away, gets back in a comfortable position and counts his losses; they probably never would have seen each other after the flight anyway, and there’s a good chance that, yet again, he just subconsciously wanted Sarah back. Instinctively, he reaches to the floor and touches the outside pocket of his navy blue suitcase, making sure once again that he can feel the outline of a stack of papers there, and when he’s sure he feels an edge, he leans back and closes his eyes. He didn’t sleep much last night, and he has a feeling that Anna didn’t either. Once the plane lands, he’s sure that both of them will need all the energy they can get. He falls into a light sleep after a little while, but not after he silently wonders how long the rest of the flight is, and whether or not both of them will survive to make the flight home.

\--Author’s note: Things actually do happen in this story. There’ll be dinosaurs, I swear. --


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter 6

Anna was right; it might start to rain soon. In the air, she wondered aloud if the clouds were growing darker, and if it would start to rain by the time they landed. It didn’t, though, although the skies have been pale gray ever since they got off the plane, and the weather hasn’t improved the whole time they’ve been walking through Universal. Ian peers up at the sky, thinking that a little rain might be an improvement over this characteristic Florida heat. Santa Fe heat, or Texas heat, he and Anna can deal with. But here, when it’s hot, it’s humid, and a lot less bearable.

Getting to the park was easier than he expected it to be. A tall, silent man, holding a dry-erase board with IAN MALCOLM written on it, was waiting at the terminal, just like Emma had said. He took them to the airport parking lot, where a red van was waiting a short walk away, and drove them along a highway and then through the biggest tourist trap Malcolm had ever seen, complete with gigantic souvenir shops with huge murals on the sides and swarms of tourists holding plush Mickey Mouse dolls. Then they reached the entrance to Universal, parked in the garage, and the driver handed him two tickets and drove off without a word. It wasn’t nearly as hard to make their way through security, past all of the elaborate storefronts, to Islands of Adventure and through half of the park as it was to keep Anna moving forward through the whole trip. She kept asking him to stop for a moment, just a second, she knew they needed to get to Pangaea, she only needed a second. She didn’t seem to have much interest in shopping or going on rides, only looking, occasionally laughing for no other reason than being overwhelmed. He couldn’t say he didn’t understand; the kid lives in Santa Fe, and this is a whole new planet compared to the desert and Old Spanish architecture of her hometown. To tell the truth, he would have liked to stop and stare at the Hard Rock Café with the convertible lodged in the front, or the huge Grecian temple, or any other part of the glittering sea of consumerism. He kept walking along anyway; they’ll have time to gawk later.

Islands of Adventure is arranged in a circle around a lagoon, over which hovers the gigantic, green Incredible Hulk roller coaster. It’s separated into four distinct ‘islands’; they didn’t walk through Marvel Super Hero Island or Toon Lagoon, as they were informed by a guard that Pangaea is located at the back of the park, and Anna wanted to see Seuss Landing. They walked through the Technicolor area full of squealing children and alien-looking creatures, then through the heavily Greco-Roman land of the Lost Continent. Now, here they are, standing in front of a fence.

The fence is at least twenty feet tall, and painted tan, with a sign on the front; even so, they can see the top of a square white building over it. Anna stands back and looks up, squinting. “That sign. It says, ‘Pardon our Stardust’.”

“I think they mean blood.” Ian knocks on the fence a few times. “Hello? Is there any way to get in here? We’re supposed to—”

A blonde man in a khaki safari shirt and blue jeans comes running up to them. “Hi there! Sorry, we’ve built everything here except a door.” He laughs a little at his own joke. “You’re Ian Malcolm?”

“Yes. Emma Ludlow, ah, called me here?”

“Of course. She said to expect you.” He looks down. “Well, hello! Who might you be?”

“Anna Malcolm. Nice to meet you.” She smiles and offers her hand.

The man shakes her hand vigorously. “Nice to meet you too! Ms. Ludlow said your dad might bring a guest. Boy, are you in for a treat.” He stands up straight again. “I’ll take you through the workers’ entrance. Follow me.” He starts off along the sidewalk, and the two follow, Ian taking Anna’s hand.

They walk for a short distance, and then come to a break in the fence, where a nondescript door painted the same color as the rest of the fence waits. The man pulls a key out of his pocket, unlocks it and pushes it open, and the three of them walk through, into a small, empty courtyard. There are three structures, one on each side—a fast-food stand called Prehistoric Bites, an Information booth and some sort of gift shop—all of which are new-looking but abandoned. There are also two paths, one on either side of Prehistoric Bites, both of which are lined with thick foliage. “Everything’s ready for the opening,” their guide tells them. “We’re looking for people to staff these things right now.”

Malcolm nods, taking in the atmosphere; it’s immaculately clean, and seems to be built specifically to handle large crowds, as evidenced by the long queue areas in front of the information booth and Prehistoric Bites. There are banners hanging from poles, as well, which loudly proclaim, “Travel Back to the Mesozoic at PANGAEA!” Anna taps the man’s shoulder and points to a small structure, possibly three feet tall, in the center of the plaza, which Ian had assumed to be a trash can. “Is that a dinosaur’s leg bone?”

He smiles and tells her, “Sharp eyes. Yes, it’s a femur.”

Malcolm strides over to it; it’s not a trash can, but a display case, covered in Plexiglas, with a domed top covering an aged but well-preserved fossil. Behind him, she asks, “What species?”

“Triceratops prorsus,” Ian says, looking at the small skeleton diagram on the information card. Anna and the man—worker or tour guide? Ian can’t decide—stand on either side of him, gazing at the bone. 

“That’s from the Hell Creek Formation,” the tour guide tells them. “Triceratops is pretty common there.”

“Pretty well-preserved,” Anna says. 

“Best we could get,” the man says proudly. “See that tooth mark on the lower right corner? Whoever this came from was probably attacked. That’s how paleontologists know how dinosaurs fought, you know. They look at injuries on fossils.” She shoots Malcolm an amused glance; she wanted to be an archaeologist like her mother a few years ago, so she’s quite familiar with this concept.

“This belongs in a museum.” Ian looks the man in the eye. “Do you know that there are paleopathologists that could actually, uh, advance knowledge with a specimen like this? Someone could have at least inspected it first.”

“I don’t think he’s the one who bought it, Dad,” Anna tells him.

“Doesn’t matter. It still shouldn’t be here.”

The man shrugs. “I’m just the--”

“Dr. Malcolm,” says a fourth, female voice with a noticeable British accent. All three of them look up to see a woman, probably in her late twenties, with blonde hair that falls to the base of her neck, wearing a neat black pantsuit. She walks over to them with an air of importance to be expected from her professional appearance. She smiles when she reaches them. “Glad you could make it. Welcome to Pangaea.” Ian silently takes her in; he’s seen her quite a few times, but only on television, doing press conferences on behalf of InGen. She never seemed the least bit apologetic, however, even when talking about how terribly sorry the company was for everything that had occurred, and she certainly doesn’t now.

“Good to meet you,” he says, and shakes her hand; obviously, both of them are trained professionals at working with those they don’t agree with, and no malicious undertone is apparent in either of their voices, at least not to the others present. “Looks like you’ve worked hard on the place. Disappointing that you’ll have to destroy it all so soon.”   
Emma purses her lips and then smiles. “I’m glad for any positive opinion. Especially from such an… expert on dinosaurs.” The tiny note of condescension is barely audible, but not lost on Ian. Emma bends her knees so she’s at Anna’s height and leans on the balls of her feet so she doesn’t have to sit on the ground. “You must be our test audience.” She smiles warmly at Anna. “What’s your name?”

“Anna Malcolm,” she says, offering her hand. Emma looks surprised for a moment, and then shakes hands with her. She stands up, smoothing out her pants, and Anna asks, “You’re the head of InGen, right?”

Emma smiles again; the friendliness on her face is identical to a second ago, almost practiced. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Are you the head of this project?”

Emma glances at the tour guide, looking amused. “Yes. I’ve supervised it.”

“Every stage?”

“Yes.”

Anna considers this for a moment. “So you were in charge when they built the habitat? When they cloned the animals?”

Emma folds her arms across her chest. “Yes, I oversaw it all.” She turns to Ian. “She’s your daughter, that’s for sure.”

“I’m just asking,” Anna says, “because I’m curious about the way the park works. I just want to know how you made the dinosaurs, and how you built their environment, and everything.”

“Well, I would know best,” Emma tells her. She turns to the worker. “Go and get everything ready for the tour. I know it’s early, but I want everything ready.” He nods and briskly walks off. “Well, now,” she says to the two remaining. “I’m sure I don’t need to ask whether you want to see your rooms or go on the tour first.”

“Rooms?” Anna asks.

“We reserved a hotel room a few—a few blocks away,” Ian says.

“That won’t be necessary,” Emma says. “We’ve just finished our hotels. You two can be the first to stay in either building. There are a few rooms that have a lovely view of the Cretaceous lake, and I’ll have your bags taken there, but you can choose your rooms. Both hotels are fully outfitted, anyhow. Staffed and all.” 

“Two hotels?” 

“Pangaea is a park within a park,” says Emma. “It has its own restaurants and hotels, and getting in will require a separate ticket. Not very expensive, of course, but it’ll cost extra and it’ll be worth it. Who wouldn’t pay a bit extra to see real dinosaurs? And who wouldn’t want to stick around for a while to do it?”

“I can think of one person,” Malcolm says dryly.

“We’re not quite seeking to attract millions of you,” she says. “Ready to start the tour?” Anna nods eagerly. “All right. Follow me.” 

“What about our luggage?” Malcolm asks.

“Right,” Emma says, pulls out her cell phone and makes a quick phone call. They wait for a few minutes, and then a man in a green polo shirt comes and takes their luggage. 

“Take it to the Cretaceous lobby,” Emma tells him; he nods and carries the two suitcases off. “Now then,” Emma says, clapping her hands. “Let’s begin.”

She strides across the courtyard and heads down the wider path on the left; the Malcolms match her pace, Anna trotting a little to keep up with the taller adults. The path is paved with dirt-brown cement that looks like it’s been imprinted with various fossils, and it’s closed in by ferns and tropical-looking trees, making it look more narrow than it actually is. Along the sides, thin metal poles with placards atop them are situated every few feet, engraved with pictures and names of herbivorous dinosaurs. “There are automatic and self-guided tours,” Emma says. “I’ll take you along the self-guided route, where you can spend as much time as you please. And of course there’s no tour for the interactive section. I’ll be taking you through the whole park. I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

“Not as many as you’d think,” Ian says.

“I happen to have worked hard at what I’ve done,” Emma tells him, continuing to look forward. “It’s not very scholarly to assume you know everything about someone else’s creation when you haven’t even seen it.”

“It’s not very scholarly to make a carbon copy of someone else’s failed idea and, ah, flaunt it as your own.” 

“Once again, you’re jumping to conclusions. I think you’ll have a very different opinion once you’ve bothered to look at what’s here.” They’ve reached the end of the pathway; all three of them stop, and Ian surveys the quadruple fork ahead. One path has a sign hanging from a tree that reads CRETACEOUS SECTION THIS WAY, the second path THIS WAY TO HOTELS, the third JURASSIC SECTION THIS WAY, and the fourth MEET OUR DINOSAURS. The third path is much shorter than the others; Ian can’t see where the first three lead, but the one on the far right seems to go towards a square white structure, the top of which seems to be made up of glass panels. Emma looks down at Anna. “Where would you like to go first?”

Anna looks around. “Can we meet the dinosaurs first?”

Emma smiles. “Excellent choice.” Ian and Anna follow her down the third path, and a rush of warm, almost muggy air hits their faces when she opens the door in front of them. They all step inside, and the door slams behind them. The sound rings through the forest around the building. No one hears it.


	7. Chapter Seven

Author's Note: Thanks for all the support and kudos! I really appreciate it. Have an excessively long chapter-- I just love you people that much.

Chapter Seven

The first thing Ian notices is that he’s struggling to breathe. He remembers how he took a trip to Ireland in college, and while he was there, his tour group visited a mountain range, which involved a walk through a particularly deep valley. It was hard to walk through that place without feeling like his lungs were going to burst, and after an hour or so, it took conscious effort to be able to inhale and exhale. "High oxygen content," he thinks immediately; that’s true of both that valley and this building. "They must pump it in through the ventilation shafts." His brain automatically panics for a second, but he adjusts his breathing rate and everything’s fine after a moment. Still, too much oxygen isn’t a pleasant feeling, and his thoughts go to oxygen toxicity. It’s humid in here, too, even more so than it is outdoors. He takes off his leather jacket and folds it over his arm.   
Anna gets a funny look on her face. “Why’s it so hard to breathe?”

“The earth had a much higher oxygen content in the Mesozoic,” Emma explains. “The animals here have to breathe more air than we do. It’s what they’re adapted for. Don’t worry, no danger of oxygen poisoning, it’s a maintainable concentration for humans as well. Very carefully balanced. You might get a little giddy, but that’s it.”

“I get that—” Anna stops mid-sentence when she looks down; it seems they’re standing on some sort of carpeted walkway, suspended high above the floor. She slowly walks over to the railing, grabs the bars and leans forward, looking a little delirious. “Wait—wait a minute. Is that… is that…”

“Yes indeed,” Emma says, grinning.

Very slowly, Anna turns around, still holding onto the metal rail for support. She’s panting a little, probably from the oxygen—no, she’s laughing in complete disbelief. She doesn’t have any words for a moment and looks like she might tip over and fall on the floor, but then she manages to talk. “Dad,” she says, as if she doesn’t believe it herself. “Dad. There’s a triceratops on the floor down there.”

“Oh,” Ian says after a second; he can’t really think of anything else. “Oh. That’s great. That’s fantastic…” It’s not like seeing a dinosaur is a shock, and he knew what would be here. But there’s still a tiny bit of surprise there, buried somewhere under all of his confirmed worries and on-the-spot conclusions. Simultaneously, he realizes something terrible, feels vindicated and is just a little bit shocked. He makes his way over and stands next to his daughter, wordlessly staring at the ground below, and yes, there is a huge triceratops on the floor. This is a familiar sight and a familiar feeling, yet it’s somehow new in its own way. That’s the thing about seeing dinosaurs: they can scare the hell out of you and you can want nothing to do with them, but somewhere on the inside, you’ll always be a little kid staring up at a huge dinosaur skeleton in a museum, no matter what.

Malcolm takes a minute to quietly stare, and then turns around to see Emma still standing there, looking satisfied with herself. “That animal’s drugged,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

“That triceratops,” Ian says. “It’s not acting like a normal animal. It’s just lying on the ground. I’m sure it saw us, and it didn’t do anything. It’s either dying, or sick, or, uh, it’s drugged out of its mind.”

“Let’s go see it up close,” Emma says, turning to walk down a staircase. Anna breaks out of her reverie and bolts over, running down the wide flight of stairs, even getting ahead of Emma. Ian hasn’t been good with stairs in general since his leg injury and he knows it’ll take a while to get down the winding staircase, so he takes the opportunity to look around the building as he makes his way down. It’s tall and lit almost entirely by the sunlight streaming through the glass roof, giving the place the appearance of being open-air. The catwalk they were standing on is one of a network; the paths go in squares, allowing people to view the animal enclosures below from all different angles. The building, all in all, looks very neat, bigger and taller on the inside than it looks from the outside; it was probably built on the side of a hill or something. All in all, it has the air of a sort of futuristic indoor zoo. It rubs Ian entirely the wrong way.

The three of them reach the bottom of the staircase, where a glass door separates them and the animal. “Make sure your hands are clean,” Emma tells them, pointing to a row of hand sanitizer dispensers mounted on poles. All three of them quickly rub sanitizer all over their hands, and Emma pushes the door open.

Anna doesn’t hesitate for one second. She dashes through the doorway and over to the triceratops as fast as her legs can take her. Ian doesn’t anticipate this and tries to grab the back of her shirt when she starts to run, but he doesn’t get a hold and she’s across the room right away. “Anna!” he calls. “Get away from there!”

The girl doesn’t even try to touch the enormous, gray animal. She just stands two feet away from it, staring, seeming to analyze it. “Anna, don’t you touch that!” Ian says urgently, not wanting to yell and wake the animal. 

“I’m not going to,” she says, quietly and soothingly, as if talking to an infant. The triceratops seems to hear her, but doesn’t seem to care much; its large brown eyes register her and then roll forward again. It’s an odd sight, an animal like that just lying there. In books and movies, triceratops are always fighting other dinosaurs or knocking down trees, and if they’re anything like the rhinos they resemble, it would look much more natural for them to at least appear aggressive. But this one just looks peaceful, lying on its side, its frill keeping its head up, its legs limp, its eyelids drooping. Its beak opens for a moment, and Anna takes a step back, but it doesn’t bellow or make any noise; it just yawns and then goes still again.

“Anna,” Malcolm says. “Right now.”

“She’ll be okay,” Emma says calmly, “if you let her alone.”

“She’ll be a shish kebab if I let her alone,” he whispers, his tone escalating. “Anna, what if that thing wakes up?” 

She takes two steps back, so her father can hear her. “It’s okay, Dad,” she whispers. “She’s really sleepy. She doesn’t care if I’m in here.”

“You said it yourself,” Emma tells him. “It’s drugged. Full of morphine. There’s no danger. And anyway, look at its horns.” She points at the triceratops’ three facial horns, and he sees what’s different about them—they’re completely blunt. They just look like rounded white stumps. “Filed down, so it can’t use them as a weapon. Not that it’d want to, anyway. It’s very docile.”

“What?” he says, concentrating more on Anna than what Emma’s saying. The little girl kneels on the floor and scoots over to the triceratops, putting out her hand, and in the same soothing voice, quietly asks, “Can I pet you? That all right?” Slowly, the animal lifts its head to look at her. Anna giggles and touches its frill with the tips of her fingers. “Is this okay?” The triceratops grunts—Ian tenses and takes a step forward, oh God, what if it’s angry and we can’t get out—and then goes still again, closing its eyes. “Aww!” Anna says in her regular voice. “She likes it. You like being pet, don’t you?” she asks the animal in her high-pitched, babying tone. “Yeah. You’re such a sweet girl!”

“It likes you,” Emma says.

“I…” Ian puts a hand on his forehead. The overwhelming urge to yank Anna away from the triceratops is still there in full, but the animal is almost oblivious to his daughter. He silently watches as she strokes its frill and then the side of its face; the animal lies completely still, and he comes to the cautious conclusion that if it wanted to hurt her, it probably already would have, and if it wanted to now, it couldn’t get up too quickly or make any sudden movements, and she’d be able to get away before any damage was done. He addresses Emma, not taking his eyes off of Anna, ready to jump up at the slightest hint of the triceratops’ anger. “All right, uh, I guess now’s as good a time as ever.”

“Got a few questions?”

“Yeah,” he says. “First—first of all, ah, why is this animal drugged?”

“For all intents and purposes, it’s a petting-zoo animal,” Emma says. “It’s been around humans since birth, and it’s comfortable around people. It even responds well to strangers and young children. It probably wouldn’t hurt… ah…”

“Anna.”

“Wouldn’t hurt Anna, even if it weren’t drugged. But we wanted to take as many safety precautions as possible, and we couldn’t take even the slim chance of it acting hostile, so we relaxed it a little, just in case.”

“By shooting her full of morphine.”

Emma blinks. “Yes. How did you know?”

“I spent an entire six months under the stuff,” Ian tells her grimly. “I know the symptoms. You’re planning to just keep all the animals full of drugs for the rest of their lives? You do realize—”

“No,” says Emma. “This is just to ease them into a crowded environment. We’ll drug them in smaller and smaller doses as the park’s been open longer and longer, and after a few months, they’ll act like normal dinosaurs. Ones that cooperate with being stroked, of course.”

“Or, uh, you could do that with proper socialization. Or something crazy, like not putting Cretaceous animals in a petting zoo.”

“This isn’t a petting zoo,” Emma swiftly cuts in. “It’s an interactive experience and it’s an experiment. Varied human interaction will teach us a lot about these animals’ behavior.”  
“Why, ah, do you even think this is necessary? Because soon, these animals will be domesticated and you won’t be able to learn much more about their behavior.”  
“It brings in money,” Emma says simply. “It’s one thing to see a penguin at SeaWorld, and it’s quite another to be able to pet one. It’s attractive. Simple as that.”

Malcolm shakes his head. “And,” Emma continues, “the animals don’t mind. They even profit from it. Some of them quite enjoy being petted. They like being around humans.”

“What about the ones that don’t? You can’t just confine an animal like this for its entire life. It’s in the very nature of a living thing to push its boundaries as far as possible. That’s part of what I was going to tell you. My theory about—well, that’s not quite applicable here, but still. You can shoot these animals full of drugs and you can let as many kids poke them as you want, but you can’t expect them to enjoy it. Or stay around for too much of it.”

Emma looks him in the eyes. “These are my animals, Dr. Malcolm,” she says. “I created them, I engineered them, I trained them. I’m done with these animals, and now I can do whatever I like with them. I could make them into steaks if I wanted to. And nothing could stop me.” 

Anna stops petting and gets up; the triceratops doesn’t seem to notice a difference. “What else is here?” she asks, face aglow.

Emma smiles and walks through the door. “Quite a lot,” she says. “Follow me.” Anna follows her through the door and up the stairs, her father reluctantly in tow. They get to the network of suspended walkways again, and Emma leads them to a different square section. Malcolm leans over the rail, trying to see what’s down there, but he doesn’t see anything; there are a few rocks on the floor, and a couple of toys—It’s like an animal shelter, he thinks disgustedly—but there’s no animal to be seen. “Go ahead down, Anna,” Emma says. “Your father and I want to talk.” Anna nods and starts walking down the staircase leading to the pen, and Ian notices the sharp contrast to her normal behavior when she’s asked to let adults talk on their own. He watches for a second, and then turns his attention back to Emma.

“Uh, ignoring for a moment everything wrong with this operation, why, um, did you do this? This entire thing. Why didn’t you open your own park? And how did you get InGen running again? An incident like San Diego tends to--”

“One at a time,” Emma says, holding up her hand. “First. Pangaea will be a park on its own soon enough. If my financial team’s calculations are correct, we’ll have enough money to break off from Universal within a year, if we get a big enough influx of visitors. I only chose to make it a part of this park because Universal was willing to provide the funding we needed if I did. Second. InGen was still running when I got it; it was unpopular, but still a business. We still had Hammond’s cloning technology, his stockpiled amber, everything. Since I was old enough and I’d already gotten my bachelor’s from business school, and my great-uncle, well, died soon after the incident, InGen went to me when my father—” She halts for a moment and swallows hard, and Ian almost takes a step back when she looks back up at him. She usually has an intense look, but this time, it’s different—he catches something that looks beyond annoyance, something that might even be hate. That impression is fleeting, though, and even though that look must have lasted only a millisecond, it leaves Ian more than a little unsettled. Emma’s face is back to normal just as quickly as it changed. “When my father died.”

She pauses for a moment, and then starts talking again. “I wanted to continue what John Hammond and my father did, but in a way that would work. In the way that experiments like this were supposed to be done. I’ve studied what they did and learned from their mistakes. The San Diego Incident was bad publicity, of course, and it was terrible. The product of what my great-uncle did wrong.”

“You mean, what your father did wrong,” Ian points out.

“No,” she snaps, startling Ian a little. Her voice returns to normal immediately. “The incident was regrettable. But we couldn’t allow it to stop the pursuit of knowledge. Really, all John Hammond wanted to do was learn. He wanted to study an ancient environment. It’s not much different than paleontology, really. I created Pangaea to study dinosaurs.”

“That’s funny. The only thing I’ve learned since I’ve gotten here is that Triceratops gets drugged-up the same way I do.”

“These aren’t for study,” Emma says, still looking at no particular point in the distance. “Not these dinosaurs. They were raised with constant human interaction. No, no. These dinosaurs don’t tell us much beyond their physiology. But we can learn from the natural environment that we have here.”

“What natural environment? This place looks like--”

“The natural environment you haven’t seen yet,” Emma cuts in. “We do have fully-functional Jurassic and Cretaceous ecosystems running here. You’ll see them shortly. Those are what we study.”

“Hmm. I doubt you could create two completely authentic ecosystems, especially not in, what, five years?”

“Six,” Emma says. “I began this project as soon as I inherited the corporation. InGen bought this land the day after Hammond’s funeral.”

“I’d call that disrespectful, but that’s probably what he would have wanted,” Malcolm sighs. 

“InGen still had its old information. We knew about the necessary gene sequences of dinosaurs, and had some vague ideas about how they behave.” Emma smiles. “Your photo record and Dr. Harding’s book didn’t hurt, either. So we set to work on making animals that achieved full maturity as quickly as possible, which, luckily, previous InGen scientists had already done. We had a batch of reproducing animals within two years.”

“What about the environments?” Malcolm says. “There’s a theory put forth by a colleague of mine. It basically states that adaptations in plants toward the end of the Cretaceous caused changes in behavior in dinosaurs, leading to increased bifurcations that pushed them off the edge of chaos, which in turn caused their extinction. If you cloned plants from too late in the Cretaceous, then soon enough--”

“We took that into account,” Emma tells him. “We bred the animals in one place and set up their environment in another. After two years of trial and error, we had a functioning ecosystem of Cretaceous plants. And we had plenty of information about ancient plants to start with. The original Jurassic Park scientists did a lot of research on the subject. We made a late-Cretaceous environment with what we knew—not too late, of course, we’d heard of theories like your colleague's—and completed a similar process with Jurassic plants. Long story short, we integrated the animals into their environments, they bred eventually, as did their progeny, and today you’ll see the third generation of Pangaea dinosaurs.”

“But what about the different species? You can’t have thrown them together and expected them to work like a fine-tuned machine.”

“That’s exactly what we did,” she says, “and it worked out very well. We introduced the different species one at a time, and always in areas without many other species. There were a few incidents between animals as the ecosystem self-organized, but that was bound to happen. Sooner or later, in both environments, territories were established and habitat isolation went to work. There’s not a lot of symbiosis, but if it’s going to develop, it’ll develop soon.” A small, dreamy smile crosses her face. “This is where everything starts to change. We know the animals will stay in their habitats, and they’ve sufficiently adapted to their environments. Now we’ll really see what the Mesozoic was like. We can watch the dinosaurs raise their young and work together. We can see them form social groups. We can watch history unfold before our eyes, and we can share what I’ve created with the world.”

“Yeah, but have you ever thought that the past is the past for a reason? Trying to re-create it--”

“Re-creating it. We’re past the phase of trying. We’ve done what John Hammond set out to accomplish, without a shadow of a doubt. Now it’s time to sit back and watch what happens.”

Ian sighs. “Okay. Seeing as I’ve heard that speech twice already, and I’ve been in two places exactly like this, I could tell you everything wrong with what you just said. I could hand you a set of mathematical proofs to show you why this place needs to be bulldozed right away.” Emma just keeps smiling. “But I haven’t seen your, ah, authentic environments yet, so I can’t point to specific flaws in them. That’s for later. What-- what I can tell you is the problem with running a facility like this one.”

“Enlighten me,” Emma says, rubbing her eyes.

“It’s like any other zoo,” Ian says. “In zoos everywhere, animals are in open-air cages. I won’t digress into why animals aren’t yours to stick in cages, but, ah, that’s obviously not the rhetoric your ears are open to. I’ll tell you this, though—how often do people throw trash into lion habitats? How--how often do kids throw their candy wrappers at a zoo elephant to make it wake up? Every day. And zoo animals escape routinely. So what do you expect when you not only allow people to, ah, physically interact with an animal—not just bother it, not just yell at it, actually touch it— and not only that, but make the animal in question something that’s evolved over millions of years for the specific purpose of fighting off animals that bother it? Do you expect a triceratops to sit and purr while fifteen kids fight over who can pet it? When has that ever worked out?”

“I told you,” Emma says, annoyance finally seeping into her voice. “We have all kinds of precautions to prevent any mishaps. Drugs if they’re necessary, socialization, behavior modification. The animals in here even have slightly altered genes to make them calmer. And as I said earlier, I made these animals. I own their patent. They have no rights. If I want to let children pet them…”

Ian leans over the railing and stops hearing Emma’s voice when he sees Anna, kneeling on the floor below them. Gently, she’s reaching out to touch the snout of a small animal, which appears to be—

Ian’s standing behind a log; Nick and Eddie are on either side of him. Far away, but still visible, Sarah’s crouching down behind a bush, reaching out to pet the head of a baby stegosaur. It’s compliant for the moment, but Sarah won’t leave it alone, why won’t she leave it alone? She should know better than to get that close! She’s going to get hurt, she’s going to die, the stegosaurs are going to come after her! Ian tries as hard as he can to call her back, to get her to leave the baby alone, but he’s too late; the baby bellows, and the herd of enormous animals begin stampeding toward Sarah. Ian yells out and tries to run after her, even ready to get in front of the herd long enough for her to get away, but someone holds him back, and Sarah’s right in front of those gigantic, angry animals. She’s going to die, and there’s nothing he can do about it! Nothing—

He’s back in the building, at the bottom of the stairs, in front of a transparent glass door. On the other side of it, Anna and the baby stegosaur she was just petting are both looking at him, Anna with concern and the stegosaur with a blank, cow-like look. “Are you okay?” the girl asks.

Ian puts his hand on his forehead. “Yeah… um… what just…”

“Dr. Malcolm,” comes Emma’s voice from the walkway above. He looks up, his head swimming, and sees the disapproving look on her face. “What did you mean by that?”

He shakes his head. “I just… Anna, I saw you with the stego, and it reminded me of… something that happened.” Embarrassed, he notes where he is; he must have run down the stairs during his flashback. “It happens sometimes.”

“Please do try to keep it under control,” Emma says, a clear note of disapproval in her voice. 

Ian turns to Anna. “Was I yelling or something?”

“You kept saying, ‘Sarah’,” she tells him, clearly worried. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

He sighs again. “I’m okay. If it’s all right, Anna, I think I’d like to see the rest of the park now.” She nods, gives the baby stego—"I guess I thought it was a rock, maybe it’s time to start wearing glasses again," he thinks—a final pat on the snout and exits the room. The two of them head up the stairs until they reach Emma’s spot on the catwalk.   
“This way,” she says, turning around. “We’ll leave through the entrance. Anna, you can come back here later, if you like.” The three of them, not exchanging a word, head out the door.


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

“Pick a direction,” Emma says.

Anna squints in the sunlight. The three of them are standing in front of the fork in the path again. The ground is damp, and there are drops of moisture on the leaves of the plants; it probably rained while they were inside. “I’d be very interested,” Ian says, “in seeing the Cretaceous section.” Anna makes a noise of agreement.

“All right.” Emma strides down the path marked CRETACEOUS THIS WAY, and Ian and Anna follow her. The path doesn’t last very long; after a minute or two, they come to an escalator, which is already heading downwards. Another one, going up, unloads onto the main path.

“I thought it looked like a drop-off,” Anna says, nodding. Ian takes her hand, and the three of them climb onto the next available step. The hill they’re going down is very steep, and all three instinctively clutch the handrails. Ian looks around as they descend. Rising above them is a wooden boardwalk, held up by metal poles. 

“That’s the bridge to the hotels,” Emma says, following his gaze.

“Real quick,” Anna says, and points behind them, to the ground that’s slowly rising above their heads. “What’s that building for?” Ian looks at where she’s pointing and doesn’t see anything at first; he had been looking ahead, trying to see the hotels. After a moment, he sees that that isn’t just a thick jungle above them—it’s some kind of mural painted on the side of a huge building, partially hidden by trees, which are obviously intended to camouflage it. 

“That’s left over from before,” Emma says promptly. “We needed a building to breed the first batch of animals in. That building is just labs and hatcheries and such. It’s empty now. It was cheaper to leave it standing.”

“Why did you need to camouflage it?”

“The animals had to be eased into their habitats,” Emma tells her, “and their surroundings needed to look as natural as possible.”

“The animals would just have seen it as a big white brick, if they could see it at all," Malcolm says.

As they reach the bottom of the escalator, Emma straightens up. “I wasn’t there when that particular decision was made. And neither were you.” 

They get off of the escalator, and in spite of himself, in spite of everything he knows and everything he’s seen, in spite of his doubts and expectations, Ian stands stock-still and stares at the structure before them. He didn’t see it from above, and now the enormous glass building is towering above them, the beginning of a sunset streaming through and making its walls and crossed silver struts reflect orange rays in every direction. It’s quite tall, a curved, rounded rectangle-shaped dome that’s incredibly sleek and futuristic. But that’s not what makes Ian and, a second later, Anna look at it with wonder—it’s what seems to be inside, at least, what they can see through the silver bars on its sides. It looks like a whole new world inside. There appear to be trees, tall grass, small birds—

“Is that an ankylosaur?” Anna asks quietly.

“That’s a styracosaur,” Ian whispers. “Those are…”

“This way,” Emma calls out, and Ian follows her over to a set of doors on the side of the building, with Anna in tow. There are four sets of doors; they go through the first on the right. The first thought in Ian’s mind when they get inside is that it looks like a bank. There are two very long queue areas, demarcated by low metal rails, in front of two hallways. A wall on the far side of the room has rows of words painted on it. Ian quickly reads:

AUTOMATIC TOUR THIS WAY—TRAIN ACCOMMODATES SIXTY PASSENGERS MAXIMUM

And on the other side,

SELF-GUIDED TOUR THIS WAY—PLEASE, WAIT YOUR TURN

In the center,

DO NOT TOUCH THE GLASS  
BE CONSIDERATE OF OTHER VISITORS  
REMAIN IN YOUR SEAT WHILE ON AUTOMATIC TOUR, 

followed by the motion-sickness symbol and the words MOTION SICKNESS MAY OCCUR.

“What’s the automatic?” Ian asks.

“A train,” Emma answers. “Much like a monorail. It goes to a different part of the environment than the walkway does.”

“Self-guided?” Anna asks. Emma nods, and Emma and Ian make their way left, through the winding line area, to get to the Self-Guided entrance; Anna climbs over the metal rails and meets them in front of a tall escalator with no visible end from the ground. Emma lifts one of the poles attached to a velvet rope and puts it aside.

“No oxygen difference,” Ian says, noticing the lack of heaviness in his lungs. 

Emma shakes her head. “Visitors and dinosaurs don’t share space here.”

They board the escalator and ride upwards for a few minutes, Anna talking excitedly about reptilian characteristics. Finally, the escalator deposits them at the top, onto a wide hallway. Emma leads the way into the hall, stops twenty feet or so in and spreads her arms out. “Isn’t it magnificent?” The building feels huge from the inside, and it’s almost like being outdoors, with sunlight streaming in from all angles and the outside clearly visible through the glass walls; the metal bars are on the outside of the building everywhere except the wall between the habitat and the lobby, where they’re on the inside. The walkway they’re standing on is wide enough to accommodate at least seven people standing shoulder-to-shoulder, but the enclosed space in the center of the building is much, much bigger. Glass walls enclose the forested area that dominates the building, and Ian notices that the floor of the walkway they’re standing on is made of glass, too, so it’s almost as if they’re inside the jungle, floating above the ground; the effect is disorienting. Ian and Anna immediately stand in front of the glass wall to their right; Ian puts his hands on the glass and leans forward, his now-ragged breath fogging the glass. “Don’t touch,” Emma reminds him, but he doesn’t hear her.

He’s seen paleo art before, but nothing like this, nothing this vivid. It’s like looking in a textbook at first, at a very detailed oil painting, but it can’t be; the light shining on the animals’ skin is nuanced too perfectly, the plants are too lush, the trees are too textured, the colors of the sunset behind them are too deep. He’s only seen this type of scene in textbooks and paintings before, so it’s hard to believe he’s seeing anything else, but below him, undeniably real, is a flourishing swamp, and around it are at least four kinds of dinosaurs. The fact that there are dinosaurs there in itself isn’t what’s breathtaking; it’s the different kinds, all in groups, drinking and calling to one another and swinging their tails back and forth, all at the same time. It’s so peaceful, a scene from a different world, and Ian, who’s already seen one of the four kinds of dinosaurs lapping their tongues and grazing in the marshy land below, takes a minute or two to be able to look at it with a critical eye.

None of the different species interact with one another or even seem to notice that other kinds of animals are there. A few feet into the swamp, where the water appears to be about a foot deep, some Triceratops horridus are wading, some of them eating the ferns and aquatic plants growing out of the water, some drinking and others just looking around. Some protoceratops are on the left, exhibiting similar behavior, and two ankylosaurs, possibly a pair-bond, drink far enough away from them that the two groups don’t notice each other. One ankylosaur drinks, and the other, most likely the male, looks around, cautiously swinging its clubbed tail from side to side. Below the walkway, a group of styracosaurs, the spikes on their frills easily two or three feet tall, are arranged in a half-circle, all eating the ferns and flowering plants growing by the side of the swamp. The air is filled with honks and warbling calls, some of which come from the animals below and some of which seem to come from far in the distance.

Ian turns to Emma; his sense of wonder seems to last shorter and shorter every time he sees these things, he thinks. “Is it always like this?”

“What do you mean?”

“This feeding behavior. Do these groups come at the same time every day? In the same arrangement?”

Emma nods. “The ceratopsids seem to spend a lot of time together. They don’t interbreed, but they look out for one another.”

“So there’s interspecies cooperation, even if there isn’t symbiosis?” 

“In a sense. They feed and drink, herd by herd, at around the same time, if that’s what you mean. They still roam in individual herds, of course. The beginning stages of complex social structures, you see.”

He points to the ankylosaurs. “Pair-bonds break off from the herd?”

“Now, that’s interesting,” Emma says, shifting her weight to one foot. “There’s a colonial nest somewhere in the center of the woods—very disputed territory, there was a lot of conflict with the parasaurs-- and there’s an arrangement to watch the young. Pair-bonds go out to feed, one at a time, and the rest of the pack watches the babies while they’re gone. They come back, and another pair goes out. They’re even forming a schedule as to which pairs go when. For only the second time they’ve bred, they’ve self-organized remarkably fast.”

“How… how many species do you have?” Anna asks, still pressed up against the glass, her voice faint.

“Ten,” Emma says, smiling. “Would you like to stay here for a while, or go and see the hadrosaurs? They’re usually in their nesting grounds this time of day.”

“Hadrosaurs,” Anna says, as if she can barely speak at all. She stares at the animals below them for another minute, and then reluctantly pulls herself away. She makes a couple of futile gestures and tries to say something to Malcolm, but all that comes out of her mouth is an astonished laugh. Emma starts walking down the hallway again, but Ian and Anna don’t even try to catch up; the landscape below is too vivid to tear their eyes from. Not too far from the swamp, a coniferous forest begins, with branches forming a nearly impenetrable curtain and an abundance of ferns and cycads growing on the ground. Anna looks longingly at the ceratopsids for a moment as they walk away, and asks Emma, having to shout a little, “Do they abandon their young?”

“Not so loud,” Ian says, glancing back at the picturesque swamp. None of the animals raise their heads.

“It’s all right,” Emma says, waiting so that they can catch up a little. “The glass is soundproofed. We’ve tested it. And, no. None of these animals abandon their young. They’re very good parents, especially the maisaura.”

Anna nods, taking the information in. “They’re warm-blooded?”

“Very. See their frills? Those help with thermoregulation.”

“I was just wondering,” Anna says, “if they act at all like crocodiles or alligators. Especially since they live in a swamp.”

“We, ah, have a herpetologist in the building,” Ian says, and Anna smiles.

Emma shakes her head. “No, they really don’t. None of the dinosaurs do. There aren’t many similarities between crocodiles and herbivores at all.”

“What about carnivores?”

“We don’t have carnivores here.” 

“Look.” Malcolm points towards the woods; they’re near the center, a few feet away from the nearest tree. Anna walks over to the glass, and Ian points between two particularly thick trees. She looks and finally sees what he’s pointing at—a bulky ankylosaur, covered from head to toe in thick brown plates, is heading into the woods, its clubbed tail swinging in wide arcs behind it. “Must be heading towards their nest."

“Probably,” Emma says. “It must have gone out to feed at the edge of the forest. Sometimes they do that, when they don’t want to leave their babies for too long. Ready to keep going?”

“Can we stay for just a minute?” Anna asks. “In case we see another?”

“Ankylosaurus is one of her favorites,” Ian explains.

“Of course,” Emma tells her indulgently. Anna keeps her eyes glued on the forest, and Ian pulls Emma a few steps back. 

“First,” he begins. “I’m guessing you keep their environment supplied with, ah, necessary oxygen, and keep it at a good temperature and humidity.”

“Yes, we do,” Emma tells him, as if stating the blindingly obvious to a much less intelligent person. “It’s as authentic an environment as possible. Complete with a mechanism in the roof to create artificial rain. Which is how we water the plants, in case you wondered.”

“Second.” He points to the trees. “Do those ever grow through the roof?”

She hesitates for a second, probably having expected a different question. “They did once,” she says. “That’s why we added the girders. Sent a crew in to cut the tops shorter. We were very careful. The animals didn’t notice.”

“What about the rest of the plants? Do they ah, ever grow up the walls, onto the ceiling?”

She nods. “Regularly. Luckily, the animals take care of that. They eat everything green, and if something grows where it isn’t supposed to, it’s eaten within a few days.”

Ian nods, taking this in; it’s nothing he hadn’t expected. “What about the animals? Do they, uh, ever charge maintenance workers, try to break the glass or—or anything?”

“The original animals, the generation before this, tried to break out once or twice when they were first introduced. And we don’t have regular interferences by maintenance workers.”

“You just said that--”

“That was a one-time occurrence. The only times we interfere in any way with the conditions in the habitats are when we have no choice except to. If we hadn’t cut the tops of those trees, the top of the dome would have broken and the environment would have been more disrupted than it would have been if we’d just gone inside for a few minutes.”  
“So you don’t go inside the domes at all.”

“Unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

Ian looks back at Anna, exponentially more worried; quite a few of his suspicions, and more, have been confirmed. He glances back at the grazing ceratopsids, and in a recognizable contrast to the way he felt a few minutes ago, he’s actually scared. That sensation, of a swimming head and pressure in his chest, is very familiar to him, but now that it’s not caused by a nightmare, the realization that he’s in actual danger, that everything is real, makes it all the worse. He doesn’t have the sensation of being inside a breathtaking prehistoric jungle anymore; he just feels like the glass wall in front of them is the only thing between him and a ticking time bomb.

“See anything?” Emma asks.

Anna steps back from the glass and shakes her head. “Nope. Maybe we’ll see some near the hadrosaurs.”

“Probably not,” Emma says, almost apologetically, as the two of them start to stroll down the hallway, leaving Ian behind. “They tend to stay in the woods. That’s their territory. The hadrosaurs wouldn’t let them stay in their territory for too long, believe me.”

Malcolm catches up and walks beside them; they chat, Anna asking Emma questions about the dinosaurs, but he doesn’t listen. He’s thinking hard of a way to get out of there, a way to convince Anna to leave, a way to tell Emma what’s wrong as soon as possible so that they can get out of Florida and away from the impending disaster he sees. But the more he thinks about it, the more solutions he considers, the more he realizes how hopeless it would be. Emma’s entirely fixated on getting him to endorse the park, and if he told her he wanted to leave—what would happen? She either wouldn’t let him go—and Anna would agree—or she’d agree, maybe even buy him a plane ticket back to Santa Fe, and then there would be nothing to stop her from unleashing what she’s created on the world, and he can’t let that happen. As much as he hates to admit it, it would be better for things to go wrong while only the three of them are there than for everything to go to hell when the place is filled with huge amounts of people. 

As they get past the woods and reach a different, open area, he’s made up his mind—he’ll stay and do whatever he needs to do to make sure that the place doesn’t open, even if it means being there when disaster hits. But Anna can’t stay. He isn’t going to let her get hurt—or worse. He hadn’t frankly faced the possibility of something bad happening to her before. Now, though, it’s possible. Entirely possible.


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

The swamp may have been breathtaking, but it’s nothing compared to the area they come to when they get past the woods and come to a wide, open plain. Under the walkway, a lake glitters in the orange light of the sunset, and beyond it appears to be a valley. A river flows a couple of hundred feet away. But the scenery isn’t what makes Anna let out an excited squeal and run over to get a closer look—it’s the sheer number, there must be sixty, of hadrosaurs, drinking from the lake, busily defending eggs or small, squirming shapes that must be their babies in what must be nesting grounds beyond the lake, honking to one another, walking in pairs or groups throughout the territory. Ian quickly looks over the landscape and mentally catalogues the species of dinosaurs; some beige-colored maiasaura are in the nesting ground far away, snuffling at their nests. Below them, drinking from the lake, are five hadrosaurs, and a few more are far in the distance, near the other side of the building, presumably at their nesting area as well. Corythosaurs, red crests on their heads, are scattered all around. A pair of parasaurs, gray with bright yellow crests, are gathered at the lake, drinking in silence. Near the woods, several dark green edmontosaurs, quadrupedal and with rows of tiny spikes on their backs, are tending to a group of egg clutches, and more are drinking from the lake below them. One of them raises its head and loudly honks; Anna jumps. “Is he defending his territory?” she asks, backing up. “Does he want us to leave?”

“No,” Emma says, and points to the edmonotsaur nest a few yards away. One of the animals at an egg clutch perks up immediately and lets out an answering honk. The two trade calls for another minute or so, and then the one that had been drinking gets up on two legs and heads over to its nest. The sounds are familiar to Malcolm, but they’re still completely strange, as if they’re the songs of an alien race. The two edmontosaurs honk at each other quietly when the first gets to the nest, and then they both begin piling chunks of grass and leaves from nearby trees on their eggs. “That’s to keep the eggs warm,” Emma tells her. “Those two are a pair-bond. They’ll be parents very soon.”  
“They love each other,” Anna says sentimentally.

“They mate for life,” Emma says, smiling.

“Like penguins?”

“Exactly. They have quite a few avian characteristics. Even the non-avian ones.”

“You, ah, said there were baby maisaura here?” Ian prompts.

“Yes,” Emma tells him. “The animals all tend to breed around the same time of year. There are hatchlings of almost every species in this area right now.”

Anna perks up. “Babies?” 

“Very adorable ones,” Emma says. 

“How old?”

“A few baby maias hatched yesterday. The parasaurs’ hatchlings are all about six weeks old.”

“Can we go see them?”

“Of course. Right this way.” Emma turns and, once again, starts walking down the hallway. Ian and Anna catch up, Anna looking back at the many animals that fill the open space, Ian staring grimly ahead. Emma falls into step beside him. “You’re quiet, Doctor,” she says. “Any more questions?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“How uncharacteristic of you.”

“I know all I need to know,” he says shortly. She smiles, satisfied, and begins walking next to Anna, pointing out a few animals and telling her about feeding habits and territory protection. As they pass over the river, Ian shakes his head; Emma must think he’s admitting that he was wrong, that he’s taken by the place, that he’ll beg her to endorse it before they even leave. Quite the opposite is true, but he can let her bask in her ego for a little while. He has more pressing things on his mind; all that’s left to do is come up with a convincing enough way to present his argument, and he’ll—

“Do they fight a lot?” Anna asks, in front of him. “Over territory or anything?”

“Occasionally,” Emma answers. “Mostly at first. There were a few scuffles when they were first introduced, but everything fell into place by generation three. Luckily, the especially bad ones isolated themselves.”

Ian stops for a second, and then begins walking again, listening to their conversation. They’ve seen heavily-armored dinosaurs, ones with huge horns specially evolved for skewering, ones big enough to knock other dinosaurs over like block towers, ones that deluded people have hypothesized could use infrasound as weapons—what could be especially bad compared to that, excluding some kind of carnivore? 

“What bad ones?” Anna asks before he can.

“You’ll see them in a second,” Emma says, and stops; they’ve gone around a bend, and ahead of them is another forested area. Malcolm cranes his neck to look above the trees, and he can see snatches of a glittering lake and a different forest. The building forms a sort of rectangle, with the corners rounded, and they’re standing on one of the short sides. “This is their territory. Two species—it’s not too dense for a big region like this, and if these fellows would share their space, we could fit another species or two in here. But they won’t.”

Ian and Anna both search the ground below with their eyes; there are no animals to be seen, even when they look into the woods. The forest is fairly dense; they can only see a few feet in. “Where are they?” Anna finally asks. “Are they in the woods?”

Emma looks for a moment. “No, I see one. No, two.” 

They look again, harder this time. Ian doesn’t see anything. “I don’t,” Anna says.

Emma steps next to her, pointing her finger at a particular tree. “Look very closely, right there.” 

Anna squints, and then opens her eyes in surprise and says, “Holy crap. I didn’t know they could do that.”

“Do what?” Ian asks.

Emma steps next to him and points at the same spot. “Right over there. See it?” All he sees for a moment is an evergreen tree, casting a shadow on the darkened ground, but after a moment, he can see that something’s not right. The air in front of the tree trunk seems to be rippling.

Suddenly, from the far left, a deep call, somewhere between a hadrosaur’s honk and an elephant’s trumpeting, echoes through the air, and the air in front of the tree trunk moves, taking the trunk with it—what? And finally, Ian can clearly see a gigantic animal walking across the grass. The image of the tree and its shadow remains on its body, fading after a moment to a deep green. “It’s like a chameleon,” Anna says, awed.

“Iguanadon,” Ian and Emma say at the same time. The dinosaur keeps walking until it meets another animal, slightly bigger and of a darker color but very similar in appearance. The two make those strange noises at one another and begin to head for the woods when another animal emerges, and they stop. The new creature looks like an ankylosaur at first glance, but as it comes out into the open, it’s obviously of a different species; in between the plates of armor on its back, spikes emerge, making it look less like a tank and more like a very dangerous porcupine. It walks past the iguanadon, which step out of its way to avoid its clubbed tail and make annoyed noises at it. The animal snorts in reply, ignoring them and beginning to graze on the grass in front of it. It lifts its head after a moment, looking up, raising its head higher and higher until it’s looking up at the walkway. For a brief second, its eyes meet Ian’s; the look on its face seems more contemplative than aggressive, although it doesn’t have the cow-like look of a hadrosaur. It looks back down, pauses, and then lowers its head and charges directly at the glass wall.

Ian shouts in surprise and, out of instinct, yanks Anna by the hand to the other side of the walkway. He pulls her away, hearing her yell something in protest, and starts running for the exit. He looks back after a moment and is surprised to see that the walkway is entirely intact, not crashing down like he expected it to be, and that Emma is standing in the same spot, her arms folded and one eyebrow raised. “Where’s the fire?” she asks.

“That thing just charged us,” Malcolm says breathlessly, marching over to her. He points at her angrily, grabbing Anna’s hand tighter when she tries to pull away. “There’s no way the glass didn’t at least crack. We could have died, you know that? You—you say you maintain so much control and that you can keep these animals contained, but, uh, you turn your back for one second, you don’t keep your eyes on an animal that’s an apparent danger, and everything just goes crashing down, just like—like chaos theory says it—”

She calmly puts her hand on his wrist and lowers his arm. “Calm down, Doctor.”

“What do you mean, calm down? Were you even—even watching when that happened? You know, that animal is basically a big, spiky tank. It probably just broke the glass, and—and if it really wants to--”

“It did not,” Emma says in a patient voice, “break any glass. See for yourself.”

Malcolm looks over the railing, finally letting Anna go, and looks down. “I can’t see the glass, we’re right above it and it’s behind us.”

“Well, there’s no hole,” Emma says, still irritatingly patient. “No broken glass. And, in any case, we have alarms. If an animal got anywhere near breaking out of their habitat, we’d know immediately.”

Malcolm scans the ground for any sign of glass shards. There are none there. But something else is missing…

“Do they do that a lot?” Anna asks, concerned.

“Sometimes,” Emma answers. “The Euoplocephalus have been doing it for the longest. They’re aggressive animals by nature. That’s why we had to put them and the iguanadon in this section together, away from the other animals.”

“Where is it?” Ian asks.

Emma turns. “Pardon?”

“Where did the euplocephalus go?” Ian asks. “I didn’t see him walking back into the woods.”

“You had time to move,” she explains, “and so did it.”

“Not that quickly.” He points to the woods. “Did you see when it came out? He didn’t walk, ah, that fast. He couldn’t have been going faster than four, five miles an hour before it was charging. And if he had run back into the woods—he’s, ah, wide enough that the trees would be swaying. And those trees haven’t moved a millimeter.”

Emma sighs, growing aggravated. “Well, he’s in here somewhere, I’m sure. Anna, there are a few new baby paras. Would you like to see them while we still have daylight?”

“Yeah,” she says, glancing at her dad; Ian’s rubbing his forehead with two fingers, still trying to process what just happened. She taps him on the shoulder as Emma starts walking forward again and mouths, "You okay?" He inaudibly sighs and nods. Truthfully, he’s seen this exact type of behavior in confined animals before. It’s a common occurrence, not usually this late into the process, but still common—but he’s only seen it on a computer screen, being done by a simulated creature, in a contained world with no consequences. Now that it’s real, now that he’s seen the animal charge directly at them and now that the only thing between him and an angry, club-tailed manifestation of aggression itself is a couple of inches of glass, it’s a completely different story. 

“They’re camouflaged again,” Anna says, pointing to the woods. The two iguanadon have, indeed, vanished, but she points to a spot between two trees, and a few inches of scaly skin are much more readily visible. “And she says they aren’t lizard-like.” They grin at each other, an irreverent, I-knew-I-was-right look that Ian figures must run in the family, and follow Emma around the bend. They make a wide right turn, and when they get past the forest—no more animals are visible, they must be in the woods— Ian can see across the clearing, and notices that they’re parallel to the other side of the hallway. It feels like they’ve walked for miles. "Well, they have lots of room to live in, if nothing else," says a voice in his head that he immediately silences.

“So why are the iguanadon dangerous?” Anna asks, making Emma stop. “Why do they need to be isolated? They don’t look too bad.”

“They don’t look that way,” Emma says, exhaling, “but they were a nuisance. Did you see their thumbs?” 

Anna shakes her head. “I didn’t look that close.”

“Well, they have a thick, sharp spike on their thumb,” Emma tells her. “And apparently, it makes a decent weapon. We tried to get them to live with the hadrosaurs at first, but when territory disputes started, they had an unfair advantage with those spikes. The things are like steak knives, and when they use them, they go right for the jugular. They killed two animals before we intervened—because it was completely necessary, we didn’t touch anything else—” she says to Malcolm before he can say anything, “so we had to move them to the woods. Same with the euoplocephalus. They look like ankylosaurs, but those two species can’t live anywhere near each other.”

“Were any ankylosaurs killed?” Ian asks.

Emma nods. “Quite a few. They did nothing but fight with each other. Luckily, we could separate them before it was too late, and they could live alongside the iguanadon without too much conflict.”

“How long ago was this?”

“About four years ago.”

“How long are their lifespans?” Anna asks.

“Varied,” Emma answers. “About—oh, seventy-five percent of the second generation is still alive today. They’ll evolve longer lifespans soon, I’m sure.”

“Let me just clear a few things up,” Malcolm says, stepping forward. “What about the first-generation dinosaurs?”

“Bred in a lab,” Emma says, “and raised in an adequate environment. We put them in here,” she gestures toward the glass, “about when they reached sexual maturity.”

“And they bred in here. Two generations have lived entirely in this place. No exposure to the outside world, besides, ah, your idea of what’s absolutely necessary.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“So none of the first-generation dinosaurs are still in here.”

“There may be one or two, but I recognize generation numbers when I see them, and I don’t see older dinosaurs very often. So, no.”

“One more question,” Malcolm says. “Do these animals ever, ah, change their diets?”

“How do you mean?”

“I am referring,” Malcolm says, “to cannibalism.”

Emma raises an eyebrow. “I would be very interested to hear your definition of ‘herbivore’.”

“So there is none.”

Emma sighs. “No. The animals do not eat each other.”

Ian nods, equally as aggravated. “Good to know.” 

They walk a few more feet before Emma holds her arm out and says, “Look here. Right here.” She points to a nesting ground full of Parasaurolophus, all of which are quietly honking at each other and tending to their nests, all of which are filled with squirming babies. 

“Is that one vomiting on its nest?” Anna asks incredulously; she’s referring to one para that’s standing over its nest with its head tilted back, making some kind of loud gagging noise that comes from deep within its chest. “I know they must have different digestive systems, but still, stomach acid would make it really--” She stops and winces when the animal leans forward, letting a thick, sludgy, green mass fall out of its bill and into its nest, where several tiny, squeaking baby paras scramble over each other to gobble it up. “That’s. Um.”

“Unpleasant?” Emma’s laughing a little. “It’s not pretty. But they aren’t old enough to chew plants yet, so their mother has to feed them that way.”

“Vomit still seems really unhealthy,” Anna says, deliberately avoiding looking at the nest where the babies are eagerly lapping up their newfound food, their mother standing above them protectively. Ian, not particularly put off by what they’re eating, looks more carefully at the babies. Their gray skin is pulled taut over their little bodies, their crests are nothing more than stubby protrusions on the backs of their skulls, and their eyes are dark and enormous. Their heads are too big and their bodies are too small; they look like tiny aliens, almost like little, otherworldly xenomorphs. He finds himself quite liking them.

“It isn’t vomit. It’s just ground-up water and plants. Ground up in the gizzard and fed to her young, just like a mother bird.”

“Still gross.”

“Still gross,” Emma agrees.

Ian clears his throat. “Maybe we, ah, should leave this general area.”

“Why?” Emma asks, clearly tired of listening to what he has to say.

“If that euoplocephalus didn’t want us in his territory, then maybe—maybe a mother dinosaur wouldn’t like us in her territory and, ah, near her young.”

“I thought the dinosaurs couldn’t see us?” Anna says, a bit alarmed.

“They can see us,” Emma tells her. “But they know we can’t go near them, so they don’t care. Like how you aren’t afraid of being landed on when you see a hawk circling in the sky above you.”

“Then why did he look at me before he charged?” Ian asks.

“It didn’t look at you before it charged,” Emma scoffs.

“He looked right up at us,” Ian insists. “He even looked right at me. I—I know we were his target. You saw the whole thing, or, ah, at least, you should have.”

“It’s getting late,” Emma suddenly announces. “It’ll be completely dark soon. I think it’s about time we called it a day. Anna, are you hungry?”

She glances at the nest, where the babies are feeding. “Not anymore.”

“How about the two of you go and have dinner at our restaurant,” Emma says, ignoring her. “Then I’ll have someone show you to your hotel rooms.”

“Can we come back tomorrow?” Anna asks. “I want to watch the iguanadon some more.”

“Of course,” Emma says, beginning to lead them back the way they came. “You can even take the automatic tour. Of course, if you’re interested in lizards, you might be more interested in seeing the Jurassic section. The dinosaurs there…”

Ian tunes her out as he walks down the hall. They pass the wooded section again, and although he looks very carefully at the trees, shaded in darkness, he doesn’t see any animals. It’s entirely empty; there’s not an animal in sight in the most dangerous part of the jungle. Somehow, that makes it even worse.


	10. Chapter Ten

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay! Edits had to be made. Enjoy!

Chapter 10 

“Say what you want about Emma, but she’s damn good at interior decorating,” Ian thinks, glancing upwards at the domed ceiling of the restaurant. The main room is a rotunda with—what else—a dinosaur theme. Several trees that Ian knows are prehistoric but can’t name are growing in square stone pots in front of the columns between rooms; like the rest of the park, this place is clearly designed to accommodate plenty of people. The room next to them has a jungle-river theme, and this one seems to be inspired by ancient Greece; a stone frieze on the ceiling above them depicts a roaring triceratops in a swamp, with a flock of pterodactlys soaring overhead. The walls are some kind of pale orange stone and the lighting is dim, coming mostly from candles in wrought-iron holders on the walls and several warm-yellow spotlights directed at the ceiling. Overall, it feels like being in the ruins of a Greek temple, an impression helped by the faux vines creeping along the walls and by the utter emptiness of the place. Besides the waiter that took their orders and the kitchen staff that they haven’t seen, they’re the only ones in the huge building; both of them are starting to get used to being alone in huge places.

“I wish there were pterodactyls here,” Anna says, following his gaze. “I wonder why they don’t have them. You said they lived on Sorna, so they could have cloned them.”

“Flying animals aren’t, uh, easy to contain, I’m sure,” he says. “And the things are huge. Ever seen a Quetzelcoatlus skeleton?” 

“Yeah, at that one museum at UT. I remember now.” She pauses. “Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t make one of those either.” They’re both silent for a moment; she starts tapping her fork on the table, bored, and then looks up, suddenly remembering something. “You know, sometimes hippopotami eat meat even though they’re herbivores.”

“What?”

“You said something about cannibalism,” she explains. “Whether herbivores eat each other. Well, sometimes herbivores eat meat. Deer eat steak sometimes, too.”

“What are you saying?” He pushes his menu aside. “Did you, ah, notice what I noticed?”

“About the bodies?”

“Yeah.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” she says earnestly. “An entire generation of animals is dead, plus more from the fighting that went on. And there are two really dangerous animals running around in the same area. So why didn’t we see any dead dinosaur bodies?”

“I had an argument all planned out,” Malcolm says, shaking his head, “but now I can kill two birds with one stone. This is at least enough evidence that they’re, ah, tampering with the environment much more than they say they are. The maintenance crews—they’re going—going in and taking out the bodies of dead animals. That’s the only possible explanation. They—they want to show their guests a pretty little park where nothing ever goes wrong, so they’re taking away the things that guests wouldn’t want to look at.” He slaps his hand down on the table triumphantly. “There we go. Not an authentic environment at all.” 

“The older ones probably decomposed by now,” Anna begins. “I get that.”

“Yeah, but we’d see the skeletons lying around.”

“But you know what? Lots of deaths of herbivores in nature happen because carnivores killed them. Territory fights and old age—they don’t kill as much as, like, predators and stuff do. How do they keep the population under control the way carnivores would?”

“Who knows? Marines with snipers? They definitely interfere somehow. And, maybe worse, they, ah, take the bodies out afterward, instead of leaving them to rot, like they would in a real natural environment. Plants need compost. Maybe—maybe that’s why the plants don’t grow very fast. As fast as they should, uh, at least.”

“You never know, though,” she continues. “Maybe we weren’t looking in the right places.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s a lot of thick forest in there. Maybe those territory fights happened where we couldn’t see them, in the middle of the woods, and that’s where the bodies are.”

Ian leans forward. “Doubtful, but still probable.”

“Or,” Anna continues, “the other animals in the herds drag the dead bodies somewhere we can’t see them, or even bury them. Lots of social animals mourn their dead. You know, pigs and elephants and stuff.”

“Those are huge animals,” Ian says. “Not a lot of room to bury them.”

“But the bodies could still be hidden somewhere,” Anna insists, growing more animated; she’s always loved to debate. “Maybe a bunch of dead, say, parasaurs could signal to the ankylosaurs that their rivals for territory are growing less and less, so the paras hide the bodies so they don’t give that away.”

“Or the ankylosaurs take any dead bodies near them,” Ian adds, “and take them to the woods to use as food for their babies. Their—their nest was right in the middle of the woods.”

“Yeah! And they’re strong. They could drag a body. Who knows?”

“Good point,” Malcolm says, looking into the distance and thinking. It probably isn’t very likely that every single dead animal was hidden away—or eaten—by the animals themselves. There was no evidence of any animals ever having died in the Cretaceous habitat, and it’s highly doubtful that all of the dead animals with several-ton corpses were so neatly disposed of by the animals themselves. But science, especially chaos theory, means having to consider even the most improbable possibilities. Still, though, Ian Malcolm, as always, has lots of doubts.

“I mean, I still wonder if…” Anna trails off. “Nah. Wouldn’t make sense. You know what I wish they had here? Sauropods. I want to see a Diplodocus.”

“Way too big,” Ian says. “Keeping a sauropod herd in that building would—would be like keeping a gorilla in your room.”

“Yeah, I know. But I still want to see them. Have you ever seen one?”

He nods. “I saw a Brachiosaurus once.”

“What was it like?”

“Loud and smelly.”

She giggles, and a tall, thin waiter appears and sets down two plates in front of them, one with a steak on it and one with spaghetti and meatballs. “You’re sure these are soy meatballs?” Anna asks the waiter, looking up. 

She smiles politely. “Yes, I’m sure. Will that be all?” They both tell her yes, and she strides off.

“Vegetarianism might actually be beneficial here,” Malcolm says. He pokes at the steak in front of him with his fork. “In case this is what they do with the dead bodies,” he says, half-joking.

Anna sighs. “That wouldn’t surprise me at all,” she says, and begins eating.

\--xxx--

“I feel like a three-year-old,” Anna says, falling down on the twin-size hotel bed.

“That comfortable, huh?” Ian says, not looking up from the desk where he’s looking over his paper. “Makes you feel nine years younger? I might have to try it out.” 

“No, the bedding looks like mine did when I was little,” she answers. “Remember when I was three, and I was so into dinosaurs? My whole room was filled with dinosaur stuff. Dinosaur toys everywhere, dinosaur posters, and my bed had a dinosaur pillowcase.” He can hear her run her finger over the pillow. “Almost exactly like this, with little sauropod shapes all over it. Remember?”

He pauses; she must have forgotten that he wasn’t around when she was three— he was in the hospital in San Jose, recovering from the events on Nublar—and he doesn’t want to remind her, as it’s still an uncomfortable topic for both of them. The fact that they only saw each other regularly when she was very small—he had to stay in Costa Rica for half a year, and he and her mother divorced soon after—is something that they both like to pretend never happened; discussing it never does any good, it only brings them both pain. He turns the swivel chair to face her; the look on her face says what they’re both thinking. “I, um, forgot,” she says awkwardly. “Sorry.”

“You really do like sauropods, huh?” he says after a moment, trying to change the subject. This was, actually, a new piece of information to him. 

“Yeah,” she replies. “I thought you knew that.”

“Just thought you liked dinosaurs in general.”

She shakes her head. “Kind of. But I love sauropods. They’re why I got into reptiles.” There’s a moment of silence; Malcolm tries to think of something to say, but no words come to mind. “Do you really have to shut this place down?” Anna asks quietly.

“I do,” he says, surprised by how regretful he is. “There’s no way it can end well. If—if things looked like they would work, I’d be giving you a different answer. But this place—it’s Jurassic Park, just, ah, with different mistakes. I’ve never been wrong about this kind of thing.”

Slowly, she nods—she knows what has to be done. “What’ll happen to the animals?” she asks. “We can’t…” She trails off, as if trying to find the right way to put it.

Ian sighs. “I know what you mean. We shouldn’t let them die. They didn’t do anything wrong. I think everything should, uh, be just fine as long as people don’t come in here. If Pangaea stays separate from Islands of Adventure and no one goes in, then, ah, it should sort itself out. We can get some veterinarians in to sterilize the animals, and after a few years, the animals will be,” he swallows, trying to word this delicately, “all gone, and they can just tear the place down and, ah, be done with it.”

“Or they could fly them all to Sorna,” Anna says hopefully. “They basically live in a wild environment now, I’m sure they’d be happy on an island. Wouldn’t be too different

He smiles. “Good idea. I don’t see why not. As long as they’re far from civilization, ah, they’ll be fine and so will we.” He stands up and pushes the desk chair in, barely even noticing the twinge of pain in his leg. “But first, I have to get Emma to listen to me.”

“I’m sure she will,” Anna says.

“I’m sure she won’t, and this— this might take a few tries,” Ian tells her. “We might have to stay here longer than I thought. She’s invested in this thing, I’ll tell you. But I can do it.” He holds up his paper. “I have experience, and I have this.”

“What is it?”

“Remember that theory I told you about? This is, ah, the paper I wrote on it. Never got it published, but I did get it peer-reviewed, had a few colleagues look it over. The—the mathematics are sound, and the experiments have a clear result. Should help show where I’m coming from, to say the least.” He gathers the small heap of prose, proofs, conclusions and printed phase-space diagrams into a neat stack. “Where’d that guy say she wanted to meet me again?”

“In her office,” Anna says. “First floor.”

“Okay,” Ian says, exhaling. He walks over and sits down on the bed. “I know you won’t stay in just this room even if I tell you to, so you can hang out in here or in your room, or run around the halls if you want. They didn’t charge us for the restaurant or—or for staying here, so you can use the mini-bar if there is one, just don’t go crazy.” He pulls out his wallet and hands her a five-dollar bill; she glances at it and slips it into her pocket. “I think I saw vending machines downstairs, so if you want, you can grab something with this. Now, let me know honestly. This place is five stories high, and all the rooms seem to be unlocked. There’s—there’s sugar on hand and a good view of the dinosaur habitats, at least from these windows. This should be enough to keep a way-too-energetic twelve-year-old occupied for at least a couple hours. Am I right? Let me know now if I’m not.”

She looks over at the window; the curtains are drawn, but if they were to be opened, one could see the Cretaceous hadrosaur area in the valley below. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

“Good. Cause some trouble.” Her hair is spread out on the pillowcase; he reaches out and fingers one of her black curls, not exactly like his own but similar enough to denote a genetic resemblance. “The staff must be, um, pretty freaked out by how empty this place is. Maybe you should put on a blue dress and just stand out in the middle of the hall.”

“How original,” she says, rolling her eyes. “How long will you be gone?”

“Two hours,” he guesses. “Maybe a little more.” He looks at his watch; it’s eight-fifteen P.M. “You can stay up a little late if you want, so I might be back in time to tuck you in. Like I said, this, ah, this might be a several-day process.”

She yawns. “Maybe. I’m kinda jet-lagging a little. Well, good luck.”

“Thanks,” he says, standing up. “That’s always good to have. See you in a little while, okay, sweetheart? Ask someone where her office is if you need me.”

“Okay,” she says. He leans over and lightly kisses her forehead; she smiles and turns over, possibly to go to sleep. Malcolm turns and leaves the room, shutting the thick wooden door behind him; he would have to worry about her a lot less if she would fall asleep and stay put, but he doubts that’ll happen. The one thing Anna never does is what he expects her to do. That’s the best part about kids—anything and everything can and does happen. “At least she’ll be safe in here,” he thinks as he heads down the neat, ambiently-lit hallway. “Won’t she? Of course. It’s late and she’s tired, she won’t go wandering off for too long.” He finds the elevator in a niche in the wall and presses the button for the ground level. It doesn’t take long to arrive, and the ride from the third floor to the first only takes a minute or so. The elevator drops him off in the lobby; when he asks the girl at the counter where Emma Ludlow is, she tells him to go to the end of the hall. He finds her office, a door that’s slightly more official-looking than the rest, Emma’s name engraved on a nameplate above it. He knocks three times.

“It’s me,” he says.

“Come in, Doctor,” an increasingly familiar voice answers from behind the door. He opens it, and quickly takes in her office; it’s roomy but not too distinctive, with a framed diploma on the wall, a neat bookshelf taking up an entire wall and a well-organized desk in the center. Emma’s sitting at the desk, a cup in her hand. “Take a seat,” she says, motioning to a brown leather armchair that’s facing her desk. “I’ve been waiting to talk with you.”


	11. Chapter Eleven

Author’s note: This chapter contains a rather long hypothesis, and according to some other people, it isn’t quite scientifically sound. I did try my best, but take my explanations here with a grain of salt. I’m not an expert.

Chapter Eleven

“But you get my point,” Malcolm presses.

“Yes,” Emma sighs; she seemed to have her energy and tact back when they began talking, but after a long discussion, she’s losing her polite façade again. “Yes, I get your point. But you don’t get mine.”

“Which is?”

“That we’re talking about theory here,” she says. “The experiments you did—they prove that little simulations of animals on a computer screen will behave a certain way. Nothing more. We’re talking about real animals. Ones that actually exist.”

He sighs, exasperated; he knew that she’d react this way, but after he’d talked for an hour, using careful, reasonable arguments that she was sure to understand, he thought that she’d be a little less stubborn. This, however, has not turned out to be the case. “You’re, ah, avoiding what I’m saying. This—this isn’t a debate of theoreticism versus empiricism. Theories exist for a reason. They describe what actually goes on in the world, or else they’d be useless, wouldn’t they? My computer simulations do tell us what happens when a natural system is introduced to a mechanical one. They accurately mimic the behavior of actual plants, and animals, and people. They’re completely valid. You just won’t listen to what they can tell us.”

“Now, about that,” Emma says, leaning back in her chair. “You say that you used a computer to model the way humans act when they’re in a system like this.”

“It was one element, yes. There’s—there’s no point in talking about mechanical systems without describing, ah, the behavior of the humans that operate them.”

“Now, we can’t quite do that, Dr. Malcolm, don’t you agree? It’s like you’re always saying—nature is unpredictable. Human nature is unpredictable. You can’t use a computer to tell what a person will do.”

“Human behavior,” Malcolm says, “is just like any other animal’s behavior, just on a different level. Now, I couldn’t tell you exactly what you’ll say next, or when you’ll wake up tomorrow, or where you’ll go on vacation next. That much, you’re right, is unpredictable.” Emma smiles, satisfied with herself. “But,” he continues, “it follows a fractal curve, just like any other animal’s behavior. You, ah, remember how a fractal curve works, remember?”

“Yes, I remember,” Emma says, rubbing her eyes with two fingers. “You explained it an hour ago.”

“It follows a fractal curve,” he says. “A general pathway. Overall, viewed from a distance, human behavior all works the same way, and becomes, in some ways, predictable. It works from up close, as well. If a man gets hungry and food is available, ah, what’ll he do? He’ll eat. If someone hits or insults him, in all likelihood, he’ll respond in kind. Basic responses. And, in this situation, algorithms for human behavior were even easier, because only certain responses were possible. The simulations of humans were entirely concerned with controlling the simulated natural system with—within the mechanical system which, in this case, was made for confinement. Basically, a zoo environment, or an ecological preserve with enforced boundaries. Following me so far?”

“Yes, I am.”

“In some cases, they didn’t try to interfere with the natural system while it tried to escape its boundaries—they only tried to catch the animals within it and return them to their habitats when they escaped, which they usually did. In a few cases, they left the system alone and didn’t change anything—like a nature preserve. But in a lot of cases, they did things like separating animals that fought often, or separating carnivores and herbivores, or adding or taking away plants. They wanted to make the animals within the system stay where they were—they always did. Any owner of a zoo wouldn’t—they wouldn’t let their animals get away or, uh, kill one another, would they? Of course not. So, you see, they always behaved in a mostly predictable way. But that isn’t what we’re talking about here. For once, any danger that occurs won’t come directly from humans. What we’re talking about is the way that animals—these animals—have been shown to act when confined within a mechanical system.”

“And you modeled these animals based on the fractal curve of their normal behavior, which is different for carnivores, herbivores and omnivores. As well as basic responses.”

“That’s right. They were somewhat predictable, but programmed to be unpredictable. An order to their chaos, just like real animals. Are—are we clear so far? I need to make sure you know this is valid before I go on.”

“I can suspend disbelief,” Emma says. “Go on.”

“Well, you’ve seen my conclusions sheet, you’ve seen my proofs, you’ve seen my strange attractors. What—what didn’t you understand?”

“Go over the part about imbalanced systems again,” she says. She reaches over and dials a short number on a cord phone, then picks it up and says, “Hello? Yes, another tea, please.” She puts her hand over the speaker and asks, “Would you like something to drink?”

“I’ve never needed a drink more than I do now,” he thinks, but says, “Coffee, one sugar.” “Caffeine should do it. Who knows how long I’ll be in here?” he thinks.

“Black coffee,” Emma says into the phone, and hangs it up. “It’ll be here in a moment. I have sugar in here.” She indicates a glass container, standing alongside a small pot of honey and several coffee stirrers. “Now. Imbalanced systems.”

“Imbalanced systems. What about them?”

“I’d like to hear more about systems composed only of herbivores,” she says deliberately, leaning back in her chair and folding her arms, “because I got the impression that those types of systems are likely to become cooperative when introduced to new environments. Please do explain that further.”

“All right,” he says, exhaling; he can work with this. “You know that ‘imbalanced’ is a term I used to describe natural systems that consisted of anything other than both herbivores and carnivores, enough plants to sustain the herbivore population and an herbivore-to-carnivore ratio that worked; a system with homeostasis. That’s balanced, and anything other than that—it’s fundamentally different than anything we’d see in nature, so it should be studied on its own. Right?”

“I can see that, yes.”

“Well, I studied different kinds of imbalanced systems. Ones with only omnivores, ones with an herbivore-to-carnivore ratio that was too high or too low, ones with only plants, ones with only animals, you, uh, get it. I assume you want to hear about the herbivore-only experiments.”

“Right. Sufficient plants were supplied, I assume?”

“Well, in some cases, plants grew on their own within the environment; sometimes they grew fast enough and sometimes they didn’t. In others, the animals’ food was brought in at mealtimes by human handlers, but those aren’t applicable here. In—in herbivore-and-plant systems, the herbivores’ adaptations—and they did adapt to break out of their environments—tended more towards the physical and less towards the cognitive, which helped them less in the long run. But it didn’t keep them from breaking out of their—let’s call them habitats. Herbivores aren’t creatures that need huge amounts of intelligence. Sure, their brains will grow every few thousand years, and they’ll develop complex social behavior, but compared to carnivores, they’re way behind. Think about the Cretaceous. Herbivores evolved to be bigger, stronger and more armored, while carnivores mainly adapted to be more intelligent. Triceratops grew horns, and Velociraptor developed coordinated attack patterns and complex communication behavior. Think about African wildlife. Elephants and hippos grew bigger, while hyenas developed more complex social structures. You see the difference everywhere.”

There’s a knock on the door, and Emma calls, “Come in.” A man in a vest places two cups on the desk; Emma thanks him, and he nods and walks out. As she talks, she pours a small amount of sugar in one of the cups and hands it to Malcolm. “I see. Go on.”

He takes a sip of the coffee; there’s a little too much sugar in it, and it’s still too hot. He drinks it anyway. “Carnivores need intelligence more, because hunting takes cognition. It takes planning and problem-solving. So carnivores develop it more and faster, and comparatively, herbivores are a lot less smart, but nature makes up for it by making them stronger. That means they’re capable of breaking out of their habitats, but those escape attempts usually involve brute force, and they’re less likely to succeed because they don’t involve any of the necessary planning or problem-solving. Which is a better escape from a jail, one where you pick locks and bribe guards or one where you just jump over a wall and hope no one’s looking?”

Emma sips her tea. “You’re saying these dinosaurs will physically adapt to break out of their habitats? After three generations, when it normally takes millions of years?”

“No,” Malcolm says, finishing his coffee. “But they can adapt physically without adding new characteristics. They don’t need to grow new horns or anything; they can learn to jump higher or run faster. Whichever the environment favors. That’s the guiding force here—all of these adaptations are guided by the animals’ environment. Or they can grow more aggressive—charge at things, get in more fights with each other to prepare themselves to fight people, push down trees. And they’ll teach their offspring that that aggression is necessary, so it’ll get passed on. Those are all things that the animals in my simulations did when they adapted. Any of those, ah, sound familiar?”

She puts her cup down. “Coincidences happen.”

“Coincidences make patterns. In any case, you know that my theory says that any system, balanced or imbalanced, will follow a certain pattern. First it’ll test its boundaries. Typically a lot of attempted escapes in this stage—just like the first generation of dinosaurs here. Then it’ll begin to expand as far as possible, followed by the establishment or reestablishment of a working ecosystem, followed by gathering information about and adapting to its environment, followed eventually by escape—which may take multiple attempts, much like your animals are making— or better yet, destruction of the mechanical system. In general, herbivores took longer to go through that process, because that lack of higher cognition that I told you about prevents them from self-organizing and gathering information about weaknesses in their habitat as quickly as carnivores do. So escape attempts are fewer and further-between. But when they do happen, well-planned or not, they can still be successful. Why is that? What would make them able to escape?”

“Physical adaptations…”

“Right.” He folds his arms across his chest. “They’re physically able to break out. So they do. They can jump over any walls in their way, break down obstacles—hell, anything you put in their way, they’ll get through, because from day one, they’ve been behaviorally adapting specifically to get past those obstacles. They’ve studied them and they’ve adapted accordingly. I’ll bet your Euoplocephalus weren’t nearly that aggressive in the beginning, and your Iguanadon had camouflaging abilities in the beginning that grew more developed over three generations.”

“That may be true, but--”

“Speaking of which, three generations is a good number. Slight adaptations have taken place and been passed down to the young, species are cooperating with each other, which will help in any coordinated effort, and enough time has passed that these animals have learned all about their environment. It’s a little earlier in the process than normal, but it’s still occurring. This system is acting exactly like the ones I’ve seen in my experiments, and if it keeps going this way, which I have no doubt it will, there’s no way around the fact that this place is about to go crashing down. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’d like a little more of that coffee, please.”

Emma makes an aggravated noise and orders more tea and coffee over the phone. “What about human involvement? And didn’t you say something about compliance? You have to account for every possibility, not just the ones you want to see.”

“Compliance,” he says, “is what I call the condition of a natural system that seems like it will operate indefinitely within its habitat. To summarize, animals will depend on the food given to them, they’ll obey their human handlers and they won’t make any escape attempts whatsoever. That usually only happens when a generation of animals lives their lives under certain conditions—lots of human interaction, lots of food and no influence telling them that the conditions they live under aren’t natural. That happens with animals that are born in captivity and kept there, without anything telling them that escape is a possibility—for instance, an animal that hasn’t had any opportunity to learn behavior from its parents or other wild animals. The other way it can happen is after enough failed escape attempts that the system is starting to do irreparable harm to itself; a system like that will operate within its habitat because it won’t last long if it doesn’t. But neither of those applies to the system I saw today, because at least some of the animals are definitely still hostile, and as far as I know, there hasn’t been any large-scale escape attempt, so they can’t have been trying long enough to give up.”

Emma bristles. “What about when humans are involved?”

“They change things,” Ian explains, “but no more than would normally change. Actually, they might help to speed the process along. In a normal environment—thank you--” he says when the man in the vest reappears, Emma mixes more sugar into his coffee and hands it to him, and the man disappears again, “the world around a system is always changing. The temperature rises and falls, plants die out, there are natural disasters, you know. In something like a zoo, the environment is static. The world the animals live in doesn’t change much, and they don’t have to adapt too much, so that keeps them away from the edge of chaos. I explained that, right?”

Emma seems a lot calmer now. “No, but I’m familiar with it.”

“An unchanging environment slows down the rate at which organisms need to adapt, and sometimes, stops them from adapting at all. It pushes them away from the edge of chaos, which is bad for them. But when humans interfere, it’s a whole new animal that comes into their territory, and a force that changes the plant life and conditions in their habitat. Humans cause changes, and animals need changes to adapt.” He finishes his coffee; it’s surprisingly good. “Humans help the system, ah, adapt faster, which helps it escape faster. Simple as that.” 

“So you’re saying that you don’t see any way that the animals at Pangaea won’t escape,” Emma says. He shakes his head, and they’re both silent for a moment. “Doctor, are you all right?”

Ian has closed his eyes and let his head fall onto the back of the chair. “Lots of talking, ah, wears me out.” 

“I see,” she says quietly. There’s another pause.

He remembers something. “Oh, yeah, and now that you have lots of human interaction with the system—both of them, I presume—you’re speeding up the process even faster than you think you are. I wouldn’t be surprised if an escape began very, very soon. We can wait for it to happen, or we can shut down the park before… before…” He’s lost his train of thought.

“Before what?” she asks, leaning forward inquisitively.

He opens his eyes and frowns; everything is too blurry, it’s hard to think straight, and his head is starting to swim a little. “Before something awful happens. Another San Diego Incident. You know… something like that.”

“Don’t want another one of those,” she says, smiling a little.

“That would be bad.” He’s starting to get a little lightheaded; it would be so, so nice to go to sleep. He remembers something all of a sudden. “The more often you interfere, the faster the animals can adapt to your presence. All the interfering you’re doing--”

“What interfering?”

“I have proof that you’re going into those habitats more often than you say you are. And that makes the environment not authentic. Not like it would be in the Cretaceous.”  
“All right,” Emma says. “What proof?”

“I… um…” He can’t remember what it is; it’s there, on the tip of his tongue, but what was he going to say? “This is important. Proof they’re interfering too much. Think…” “Oh,” he suddenly says out loud. “Anna and I were talking about population. Something about population… How do you keep it in check?”

“Well, we don’t need to. Enough animals die on their own or in fights with other animals that population size doesn’t need to be kept in check. It self-sustains.”

“Oh. Okay.” He wonders if he should object to this, as it doesn’t seem entirely right somehow, but he decides against it—he’s starting to lose his ability to concentrate for too long, and sleeping would be such a relief. The room is tilting a little, and everything only seems stable when he closes his eyes and lets himself sink into the chair, that incredibly comfortable chair…

“What about… what about Sorna?” he asks, trying to sit up but not lasting long in the effort.

“What about it?” Emma asks. Her voice is distorted, almost rippling in a strange way, but Ian barely hears her.

“You made more dinosaurs,” he says; talking is a straining effort, like being underwater and holding something heavy above the surface while treading water, and he wishes he could stop, but what he’s saying is important somehow, it must be. “There… there are already dinosaurs on Sorna. That was a bad idea… Why did you clone—clone more dinosaurs here?” Another question floats to his head, something even more important, but as soon as he’s aware of it, it floats away, unable to be grasped again, like a thread drifting off in the wind.

“To learn about them.” Emma’s voice seems to come from a long, long distance away. “That’s the only way to really learn about dinosaurs-- by observing them. And isn’t that the most important thing a person can do with their life, Dr. Malcolm? Learn, and advance knowledge?” He nods, thinking vaguely, “Dammit, she’s right.”

“Open your eyes, please,” she says; he does, and he can’t see well, everything is blurry, twisted and surreal. He can vaguely make out a paper being pushed across the desk, in front of him, and something being pushed into his hand—a pen. “Just sign this, and you’ll have done all you need to do.”

“What? Why?” He’s irritated; why can’t he just go to sleep? Nothing makes sense anymore.

“To help us learn,” she tells him, and points to a line at the bottom of the paper. “Everything is already written for you. Just sign and initial, right on this line.” He fumbles with the pen and writes his name in cursive, followed by the letters IM; they probably aren’t too well-formed, but who cares? “Thank you very much,” Emma says, smiling and withdrawing the paper.

“Can’t I just rest,” he mumbles; he’s lost all sense of objects and defined edges, everything is just a big blur.

“Yes,” she tells him calmly. “Rest all you want. You’ve done a lot for me, Dr. Malcolm. Go ahead and sleep.” Relieved, he closes his eyes, and instantly, everything goes black.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roofies suck.

Chapter Twelve

The lights are entirely too bright. As soon as Ian opens his eyes, they glare into his face, feeling like laser beams shining into his skull. He groans and sits up, rubbing his eyes and pushing his glasses into place. It takes a minute for him to completely wake up; he’s been drifting through vivid darkness for what feels like a very long time. Before he figures put his surroundings, he looks himself over for clues about what could have happened. His shins are sore, and his head feels like it’s been hit a few times—not hard enough to cause a concussion, but enough to cause a hell of a headache—but other than that, there doesn’t seem to be much damage done. He notices that the air is heavier in his lungs than it should be, and it’s a little hard to breathe, but he adjusts his breathing and feels okay after a moment. 

“Okay,” he thinks, trying to stay calm. “Where was I last?” Vague thoughts of an office float to mind, and he remembers that he’s someplace called Pangaea shortly before remembering what and where Pangaea is. “Can’t be in the hotel room,” he thinks, looking around; the huge, clean, all-white room is too bare, the lights are too stark, the ceiling is way too high. It’s nowhere he recognizes—could it be a hospital, or a mental hospital? That’s what it looks like. He scans the room. He seems to be sitting against a wall in the center, and nothing else occupies the room except—

He freezes.

Against the far wall, to his left, is a gigantic, slumbering animal. Its huge, square head rests on the ground, its scaly body lies on its stomach and its thick tail is curled on the ground behind it. The creature must be at least twenty feet tall, and it looks like an unusually proportioned crocodile, lying motionless on the floor. Regardless of the fact that it’s sleeping—its eyes are closed, and its tiny, forked arms wiggle, grasping at something unseen—Malcolm begins shaking. He keeps his eyes trained on the Tyrannosaurus rex—it couldn’t be mistaken for anything else—as he slides along the ground, keeping his back to the wall, to the opposite end of the room from the animal. His legs are still like jelly and his body is still waking up, and when he tries to get up and run, his legs give out under him. Some part of his brain is telling him that he’s in a nightmare and another part is bringing back memories to help him get through this new reality, and both are telling him that he needs to get away from this animal as quickly as he can. He drags himself across the room, driven by panic that’s still forming, until SMACK, he hits something and falls to the ground again. 

Ian pulls himself up, rubbing his forehead and groaning, and finally sees the glass wall. Behind it, sitting in a chair, in a room as clean and white as the one he’s in, is a blonde woman in a suit, holding the handle of a briefcase on the floor. “Emma?...” he gets out as her face is accompanied by a name. 

She lifts a small white box connected to a thin wire to her mouth, and when she speaks, her voice comes through a speaker mounted high on the wall. “Hello, Dr. Malcolm,” she says calmly. “You don’t need to worry. The rex is sedated. For now.”

He looks at the rex behind him; it’s still sleeping, undisturbed by the sound of Emma’s voice. Its presence is surreal. He’s only seen these animals when they’re hunting, killing or rampaging, and it seems entirely unnatural that one should be so close to him without lunging at him or even seeing him. It should be in a jungle, trying to eat him, or at least looking for prey; its mostly unmoving body against the stark, white wall looks like a painting, too strange and uncomfortable to look at to be real. “What… what am I…” His voice comes out weak. “What is this? Why is there a…”

“I gave her a few sedatives so we could chat,” Emma says. “I do hate to sit down and explain, but an imminent-doom speech is, in this case, somewhat necessary, I think.” She looks over at the sleeping rex. “She must look familiar. I wish we could have gotten a rex with feathers, like they originally would have looked, but the frog DNA didn’t allow for that. I tried to get my geneticists to work that out, but they couldn’t—”

“Shut up about DNA,” Malcolm says, louder than he intended. “What am I doing here?”

“Oh, right,” she says, perking up. “Well, if you’re as bright as you’ve claimed to be, you should have figured it out. But I might as well say it. You’re here to die, Doctor.” 

“What?” 

“Should have gotten that out of the way first, I suppose.”

Something in Malcolm’s brain immediately switches to thoughts of imminent death whenever he sees a tyrannosaur, but he didn’t expect to hear it said out loud, so matter-of-factly. In other situations, there were possibilities of escape when a rex was around, but now that Emma seems to be in control…

“The sedative should last about thirty or so more minutes,” she continues, “which is just enough time for me to tell you exactly what’s going to happen, and exactly why you deserve it.” She stops, looks right at him, and a smile grows, unrestrained, on her face. “You’re going to die,” she says, looking him right in the eyes. “God, I’ve waited so long to be able to say that. You’re going to die, you bastard.”

He gets up and slams on the glass as hard as he can, over and over, desperately trying to get out of that room; he might have to deal with a complete sadist once he gets through, but it’s better than being stuck with a tyrannosaur. “Don’t bother,” she says, completely calm. “Soundproof, bulletproof and incredibly thick. And there’s no one around to hear you.” He keeps pounding at it, and Emma sits, calmly watching, until he gives up and slumps to his knees. “Done yet?” she asks. 

“F—k you,” he says through gritted teeth.

“That’s nice,” she says, unfazed. “I’d love to hang around, but I’ve got other things to do, so I may as well tell you now.” She leans forward and looks him in the eyes with an unsettling intensity. “You killed my father, you son of a b—h. My father is dead because of you. You killed him, and you’re going to die now, you bastard. And the last thing you’ll ever do is regret it.” 

“I didn’t kill… I didn’t kill your father,” Ian says, caught completely off guard. “I… I was bringing the baby back to the ship. He climbed in the cargo bay of his own--”

“And you let him, you son of a b---h!” she screams, jumping up and knocking the chair back. “He was right behind you, and you let him go in there,” she continues. “At least, that’s your story. I know what you did, you sack of rot. You pushed him in there, didn’t you? You knew the rex was in there. And you pushed my father in!” she screams.

“What the hell makes you think that?” Ian shouts, getting to his feet. “You’re out of your f---ing mind. That’s not what happened at all. I—I had no idea he was even on the ship. Why would I let him die?”

“Because he made you look bad,” Emma says, barely able to contain her rage. “Because he had reasonable doubt about your crackpot Jurassic Park stories. You thought a sullied reputation was worth killing him for, didn’t you? Are you happy now?” she yells.

“You’re lying to yourself and you know it,” Ian says. “I’m sorry about your father. But this,” he gestures to the sleeping rex, “is just a—a coping mechanism, and you know it. You read Dr. Harding’s book. You know what actually happened on that boat!”

“Yes, I do,” Emma says, very deliberate. “I know exactly what happened on that boat. You pushed my father into the cargo hold, you coward. He wouldn’t have wandered in on his own.”

“Yes, he did,” Ian says, looking her in the eye, “because your father was an idi—”

“Don’t you dare!” Emma screams. “Don’t you dare talk about him that way! He was a better man than you. That’s why you did what you did. You knew what a worthless coward you are, so you killed my father and told your idiot girlfriend to cover it up.” She stands up straight. “You told her to tell a different story in her book so nothing would happen to you. So you wouldn’t get what you deserved. Well, this is what you get, f---er!” she shouts, pointing at the rex behind him. 

“I’m telling you, this is crazy,” Ian says, slamming his fist on the glass wall. “You know and I know how wrong this is. You’ve done all this on—what? A vague suspicion? You have no proof behind this, no evidence, no basis for—”

“I don’t need it,” Emma hisses. “Because I know what a pathetic piece of garbage you are. Because I know exactly what you’ll do to prove a point. That’s all I need to know. And you know it, too. You know what you did. You know I’m right. The only reason you’re denying it is because you want to run like a coward from what’s coming to you.” She looks him in the eye. “But it’s all too late for that now.”

“Let’s ignore the fact that you, ah, won’t even consider rational thought here,” Ian says furiously. “You’re angry at me because you think I killed your father.”

“I know you did.”

“My daughter is somewhere around here. Are you really about to do what you’re accusing me of doing? Are you really about to kill a little girl’s dad? I mean, if her dad dies, she might grow up to be like you someday, and my God, imagine how awful that—”

“I don’t want to take Anna’s father away,” Emma says, her voice raw, “but this is different than what happened to me. My father was innocent, and her father is a murderer. This is a different matter. Justice is being done here.”

“What makes you think you’re the one who can judge, then? You aren’t law enforcement, you aren’t--”

“Law enforcement didn’t do their job,” Emma says, “so I’m doing it for them.”

“The police saw the security tape of what happened when Sarah and I got on the boat,” Ian says forcefully. “You—you do know there’s a tape, right? Video evidence that I didn’t do anything wrong, that—that Peter went into the hold after we jumped ship? Proof that you built this entire park, cloned all these animals, because of something that never happened? If you’d bothered to--”

Emma laughs, a short, mirthless bark. “I did all of this for you?” she says. “Don’t flatter yourself, Doctor, you’re not worth that much. I built this park because I wanted an opportunity for science to study dinosaurs. I would have opened Pangaea whether you came or not.” She smiles. “And now that you’ve endorsed it, I will.”

“What do you mean? I didn’t endorse this!”

“You signed a pre-prepared statement in my office,” Emma says, gesturing to the briefcase on the floor, “saying that Pangaea is safe and that you fully endorse my business venture. Signed and ready for the press.”

“And the second I get out of here, I’ll tell the same press what you did to get me to sign it. What the hell makes you think you can get away with this?”

“I do have sufficient cause.” She smiles and looks back at the rex; it’s still comatose. 

“Just stop and think about this for one minute,” Ian says, looking back at the rex as well. If he doesn’t move, it won’t see him, right? But it’ll be able to smell him, and there’s no doubt in his mind that it’s hungry.

“I have been,” Emma says, completely normal and polite once again. “For six years, Doctor.” She pauses. “It should wake up soon. Tranquilizers don’t usually last so long. Pity.”  
“What should?”

She points to the tyrannosaur. “That. Pretty impressive, isn’t it? Just look at the teeth. I almost decided to kill you myself, but I thought it’d do a better job. Besides, it’ll make sure you die the same way my father did. It’ll tear you limb from limb.” She sighs sentimentally. “And I know what you’re thinking—I’ll drop your body near the iguandon and say you found a way to jump into the habitat. Just decided to go kill yourself in the middle of the night. Nothing I could do about it, very sad indeed. No one will ever know what happened here, not even if you came back from the dead. Isn’t that fitting? No one ever believes you, do they?”

“I have a daughter,” Ian says, trying not to sound desperate but not doing well. “I have—I have three kids. Think about them…”

“They’ll be all right,” she sighs. “They’ll believe you committed suicide, just like everyone else will. Would you forgive your father if he killed himself without saying goodbye? I don’t think so.”

“Anna, uh, she’ll know--”

“Anna won’t miss you,” she says matter-of-factly.

That’s enough for Ian to hear. “Shut the hell up!” he shouts. “You don’t know what you’re doing. I’ll shut your whole goddamned place down, do you hear me? You f—ing lunatic!”  
“I think I’ve made my point,” Emma says. “I’ll be around to pick up what’s left of you later. I wish I could stay and watch, but I must go and check on the other carnivores. Enjoy your death, you bastard,” she says cheerfully. “My father’s going to look down at your bones and have a good laugh, I know it.”

Ian thinks suddenly of the last time he saw a tyrannosaur, and of Kelly, and suddenly feels a lot weaker. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on any of my kids,” he says quietly. “You—you want to kill me, fine, I’ll help myself. But please, I—I beg of you, don’t do this to Anna.” 

“I don’t care enough about her,” Emma says lightly. “I wouldn’t go to all this effort. But I’ll leave her alone. She hasn’t done anything.” She turns to leave.

“You did all this,” Ian points out. “You cloned a rex just so it could eat me.”

Emma turns to look at him. “I told you, Doctor,” she says. “Don’t flatter yourself.” And she puts down the little microphone device, turns a key in the lock on a door and leaves the room, letting the door slam behind her. Malcolm doesn’t hear the sound. 

He puts his face in his hands for a moment, trying to collect his strength, but the fear that was suspended when he was talking to Emma has returned. He avoids looking at the rex, knowing that the sight would just bring back more terror and would interfere with his concentration, but even as he looks through the room for any possible way to get out and pounds on the glass some more, he knows in the back of his mind that it’s worthless. Emma is a maniac, he knows that now, and if she’s been planning this for as long as she says she has, it’s all been thought out. She did everything he can to make sure that he has no way to get out of this room. He still tries as hard as he can, but his anger and strength quickly sap. He doesn’t want to give up without a fight, but he doesn’t want to fight an uphill battle, either. So, once he’s tried everything he can possibly try, once he’s done everything he can possibly do, he sits down against the wall. He looks away from the rex, pulls his knees up to his chest, closes his eyes, tries to keep his thoughts on the three children that he loves, and waits to die.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Author's note: Hey guys! Sorry to be 'that author' but this story isn't getting a lot of hits, so if you like this, please leave kudos or comments so I know I'm not just updating into the void of cyberspace. 

Chapter Thirteen

Malcolm can’t make himself look at the rex. He’ll have to look at it soon, he knows that, but he can’t do it. After he looked around the room once again for a way to escape, he let himself break down for a minute and then looked for any way that he could kill himself. Maybe, he thought, there would be a nail or something else sharp lying around, but there wasn’t, and his jacket is gone, so he can’t use that. He banged on the glass as hard as he could, but nothing happened other than it shaking a little. So there’s no way he’s going to get out, he figures, and that means he’s definitely going to die in here, and there’s no way he can do it himself, which means that being killed by the rex is the only way out. So he’s going to have to look at it eventually, but he can’t; the sight brings about instant panic and scares him to death, and so he looks away from it, deciding that he’d rather have disgust at his weakness than an enormous panic attack.

He tries to fall asleep, thinking things might be easier if he were unconscious, but can’t, and things that usually bring him comfort—thinking about his family, bringing back happy memories, reciting memorized passages from Fractal Sciences and Complexity—only bring depression. So he has no option other than to look around the room and avoid thinking at all, and that’s when he sees the door handle start to twitch. 

He only stares for a minute, not comprehending what it means, and then he bolts to his feet and runs over to the glass. The handle goes still, and his heart sinks for a moment—even Emma’s company would be preferable to being completely alone for this—and then it goes all the way down, the very wide door swings open, and Anna’s head cautiously pokes in. She pulls a bobby pin out of the lock on the door, looks around for a moment, and then spots Ian. She says something, but he can’t hear what it is. He just looks at her, flooded with relief and confusion—“What is she doing here? Is Emma going to kill her too?” he thinks—and her lips move again. “I can’t hear you,” Ian calls. She seems to hear him, and says something else. “Can you hear me?” She nods. “There’s a white box on that chair. I--I think it’s a microphone.” She sees it, holds it up to her mouth and says something that he doesn’t hear. 

He shakes his head, she presses a button on the box and her voice immediately comes through the ceiling, “Can you hear me now?”

“Anna,” he says, his voice filled with relief; it seems like so long since he’s heard her voice. “Anna, are you okay? Did Emma bring you here?”

“No, I followed her,” she says, looking around the little section of the room she’s in. “How does this thing open? There has to be a way in or out of here.”

“I don’t think there is, Anna,” Ian says, trying to keep his voice even so he doesn’t upset her any more than he has to. “Listen, sweetie. You—you need to get out of here. Just go. Run. I don’t want you around when this thing wakes up.”

“Likewise,” she says; she’s noticed a small control panel on the wall, some sort of touch screen, and is doing something with it. “Did you see her use this?” she asks. “I can navigate the menu, but—” Abruptly, behind him, Malcolm hears something fall on the floor with a splat; Anna looks at it for a second, wrinkles her nose, mutters, “Well, that’s a meat dispenser,” and starts working on the control panel again.

“What are you trying to do?” Ian asks desperately; why won’t she listen? Doesn’t she see she’s in danger? 

“There has to be a way in or out of here,” Anna tells him, holding the microphone in one hand and swiping the touch screen with the other. “There’s no door in there, is there?”

“No.”

“Figured. The glass must come up, then.”

“How do you know?” Ian asks, glancing back at the tyrannosaur every few seconds; it doesn’t stir. “How do you know there’s a way out?”

“This is a cage,” Anna says, not looking at him. “Every cage has a door.” She sees something on the screen and claps. “Here we go!” She presses something, stares for a second and then turns to him and says, “It only opens with fingerprint recognition.” She touches the screen; it goes red for a second. “It won’t take mine. Maybe it needs Emma’s. I think she’s still in the building. If I can find her, maybe I can convince--”

“She won’t let me out,” Ian says. “I know she won’t. If you want to help me, if you want to do something for me, get out of here right now. That’s what I need you to do. I need you to leave.” He puts his hand up against the glass. “I love you, Anna, and I don’t want you to have to see this. Please, sweetheart. Get out of here.”

“Is there no other way out?” Anna asks. “Have you checked the whole room?”

“Twice,” Ian says sadly. “I’ve done all I can. But this thing will—will wake up any minute, honey, and I need you to leave.” 

“I’m not leaving,” she says. “I’m not going anywhere.” She puts her hand on the glass.

“Anna, you have to go,” he says, trying to sound authoritative but just getting more choked-up. “Emma, uh, she’ll be back soon, and I—I don’t want to think about what’ll happen if she thinks you know too much. Just… just leave. Go back to the hotel room. She’ll tell you I killed myself, but please, make sure there’s an autopsy--”

“Don’t say that,” Anna says, her voice trembling. “You’re not dying. You’re gonna be okay, Dad.”

Ian sighs and looks down; he hadn’t prepared to give this talk for at least a few more years. “Anna, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you when you were little. I’m sorry I divorced your mom, I’m sorry I wasn’t around to be your dad. Don’t—don’t ever forget that I love you, okay?”

“Stop talking like that!” Anna cries. “I’m gonna get you out of here, I swear!”

“I wish you could, but that’s not the way it is now,” he tells her. “All you need to worry about is making sure you get home safely. Don’t let Emma shut you up, okay? Tell everyone what’s happening here. Go to the press and tell everyone. And if you see your stepbrother and stepsister at my—at my funeral, tell them that I love them too. Will you do that?”

“Stop it,” Anna says, pulling her hand back and blinking away tears. “I have one more idea.” She turns, throws open the door and runs out of sight. 

“Anna!” he calls after her, but she’s gone in an instant. He stands with his hand against the glass for a minute, biting his lip to keep from crying, when he hears a thumping sound coming from behind him. He whips around and sees the tyrannosaur’s tail flicking back and forth—“oh God, oh God, it’s waking up, oh God, I’m not ready for this,” he thinks, panicking— and slowly, one of its big, yellow eyes opens. It stays like that for a moment, makes a low snorting sound and, in a single, practiced motion, heaves its head and body upwards, getting to its feet. Ian watches, frozen with terror, muscles tense, as it surveys the room, flicking its tail nonchalantly. After a moment, it walks over to the center of the room, noticing the bloody steak lying on the floor; that must have been what fell from the ceiling. It leans down, sniffs at it and, making Ian jump, grabs it up with one snap of its jaws. The animal throws the steak in the air and easily catches it in its gigantic jaws. It chews with a couple more snaps, each making Ian flinch and step back, a lump goes down its throat as it swallows, and it turns and looks straight at him. 

The rex looks more curious than angry as it takes a step toward Ian; he takes two steps back and finds his back pressed to the glass, so he slides along it, not taking his eyes off the animal. It takes another step, following him—does it think he’s trying to play? The will to live, the need to run away, comes back to him in a rush, along with an essential memory. He holds completely still, his eyes still trained on the rex, not moving a muscle. The animal pauses and then starts sniffing around, eventually lowering its head to his level. It pauses when its head is right in front of Malcolm, and the fabric on his shirt ripples as it sniffs. He doesn’t even let himself breathe until it pulls its head back up. When it does, it stares at him for a moment, and Ian’s heart thumps in terror, but it doesn’t lunge at him like he expects it to. Instead, it takes a step back and swishes its tail more, lowering its boxlike head. Ian stands still, ready to dodge a bite, expecting it to snap at him at any moment, but it stays stationary, looking at him expectantly. After a minute or two, it turns its head to the glass wall and taps it with its nose, and then looks back at him, snorting. It does the same thing again when he doesn’t respond, and he finally realizes what the animal wants—it expects him to let it out through the glass.

Not entirely sure how to respond, Ian takes a cautious step toward the glass, and the animal’s eyes follow him. He stands entirely still again, and the tyrannosaur gets visibly agitated, swinging its tail faster and clawing at the air with its little forearm. It makes a grumbling noise, turns away from the glass and starts pacing around the room, its footsteps pounding on the ground and echoing throughout the huge area. It makes another agitated sound when it gets near Malcolm, and looks at him before it goes over to the glass wall and whacks it a few times with its thick tail. When Ian doesn’t respond, it starts pacing again, and he takes the opportunity to look over and see if Anna’s back; there’s no sign of her. The rex is making louder noises now, almost whining and roaring at the same time, looking at him every few seconds. He remains completely stationary, but that doesn’t seem to make any difference—it appears that the rex can smell him. That’s not a surprise to Malcolm, but it doesn’t reassure him much either. There’s nothing he can do if the rex gets angry at him, and it seems to be headed in that direction.

Suddenly, the roof above him trembles, not very hard but hard enough that it’s noticeable. Ian turns around and almost doesn’t believe what he sees in the adjourning room. A cloud of what seems to be plaster dust is billowing through, and in its midst, two outlines are visible, one much larger than the other. Ian alternates between looking at the room and watching the tyrannosaur, which doesn’t seem to have noticed the tremors or their visitors. Finally, the dust clears up, and Ian can see what’s on the other side of the glass wall. There’s a huge hole where the doorway used to be, from which chunks of plaster are still falling, and a spiky, plated, quadrupedal dinosaur—Euoplocephalus, he remembers—appears to have caused it. It’s looking around, swinging its tail defensively, and the second shape that he saw is dodging to avoid it. “Anna!” Ian says, trying not to attract the carnivore’s attention. “Are you all right?” She’s bent over and appears to be coughing hard.

She grabs the microphone. “I’m all right,” her voice says through the ceiling, weak and sounding as if she’s choking. “Is the rex trying to--” She has a momentary coughing fit. “Is it hunting you?”

“It’s just pacing,” Malcolm says. “Like it wants to be let out. Where in hell did you find that thing?”

“Tell you later,” Anna says. “Get away from the glass. I’m gonna try something.” Ian backs away, flattening his back against one of the side walls. “Now jump up and down and yell a lot,” Anna instructs, her voice clearing up. “Try to make it angry.”

“Why do you want a second angry dinosaur in here?”

“I want him to charge,” she tells him. “Maybe he can break the glass. Might want to hurry, I don’t think you want to be dinner.”

Ian starts waving his arms around and shouting at the euoplocephalus; over the microphone, he hears it grunt angrily. “Keep going,” Anna orders. “I think it’s working.” He starts shouting louder, and when that doesn’t produce any difference in the animal’s attitude, he runs over and kicks the glass. The euoplocephalus doesn’t respond, but the rex stops and turns its head immediately. Once it does, it strides over to the glass, opens its mouth and lets out an ear-shattering roar. Ian covers his ears, but that doesn’t block out the terrifying scream. The euplocephalus definitely notices and lets out a bellowing sound of its own. The tyrannosaur seems to become incensed by this; it roars once again and then jumps at the glass, turning its head and throwing its full weight at the glass wall. “Get it to do that again!” he hears Anna yell over the noise of the increasingly aggressive animals. 

“Is the glass breaking?” he shouts. 

“Yeah!” comes the answer, right before the spiked herbivore lowers its head and loudly rams into the glass. The rex, focused entirely on getting to its opponent, swings its tail at the wall, and cracks shoot out from where its tail makes impact. “Almost--” Anna calls, but her voice is drowned out by the loud THUMP as the euoplocephalus turns and swings its heavy, clubbed tail at the wall, followed by the deafening sound as the glass wall shatters, a shining waterfall of tiny, sparkling shards falling to the ground. Ian turns away and Anna ducks to the ground, covering her face with her arms, but neither dinosaur seems to care about the tall wave of falling shards as both of them lunge forward, the tyrannosaur grabbing at the euoplocephalus’ neck and the herbivore ducking to avoid its attack. Glass dust begins to surround the battling pair, and Anna jumps to her feet and yells, “Come on!” 

There’s not much room between the spiky edges of the remaining glass and the fighting dinosaurs, but although the euoplocephalus’ tail is swinging around wildly and the rex is thrashing unpredictably in all directions, there’s still a chance of slipping by unnoticed. Ian runs over, ignoring the pinpricks as the glass pierces the soles of his shoes, and slides by the glass to avoid the swing of a clubbed tail. He sidesteps through the narrow passage, coughing as the glass dust permeates his respiratory system and wincing as the jagged edge of the glass cuts his back, and joins Anna. They grab hands and, not looking back, run out into the hall. They can hear the roars and bellows of the continuing duel no matter how far away they get from it, but after a bit of running through concrete-floored hallways, they stop momentarily to catch their breath. The hall they’re in is lined with neat, white doors, and when Ian looks over and reads the label on one of them, he can’t believe his eyes.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

“Deinonychus?” he reads out loud, disbelieving. “There’s a Deinonychus in there?”

“Yeah,” Anna says, following his gaze. “I don’t know why they need a Deinonychus when they have Velociraptor, but--”

“What did you just say?” Ian cuts in.

“They have raptors here,” she informs. “I’ve seen at least two doors with ‘Velociraptor’ on them.”

Ian puts his forehead in his hand. “You—you mean they… This building, it’s all…”

“Carnivores,” she says. “Filled with carnivores. The ones on the doors that I read, at least. I was kind of in a hurry. I’m sure you don’t mind.”

“How many?” he asks, that horrible feeling of overwhelming fear seeping into his mind again. 

“How many doors are there?” she says, throwing her arms out.

“She said they didn’t have any,” Ian says, voicing the most obvious of the conclusions swirling in his mind. 

“I called her bullsh-t,” she says matter-of-factly. She glances back. “I think we better go.” She grabs her father’s arm and starts running; he immediately follows. 

“Hey!” a voice barks from behind them; Anna increases her pace. “Stop!” the voice shouts, and Ian hears a clicking sound that makes him pull Anna to a stop and turn around. A muscle-bound man in a green uniform with the Pangaea logo on it is striding towards them, pointing what appears to be an automatic weapon in their direction. “What the hell are you doing here?” the man demands. “Who are you? This is a highly-classified area!” He points the gun back and forth at the two of them. “Answer me now!”

“Emma—Emma brought us here,” Ian stammers, moving between the path of the man’s weapon and his daughter. “She brought us here. We didn’t break in.”

Unsurely, the man keeps his silver weapon in the air. “Brought you here for what? Where’s your security clearance?”

“We don’t have any,” Ian says. “But Emma took m—took us here. Both of us.”

“Where’s Ms. Ludlow?” the man asks, his tone steady.

Ian looks down at Anna; she shrugs, her face pale. “We don’t know,” he says. 

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull,” the man says through gritted teeth, “but stay right here and put your hands up, or I’ll protect trade secrets on my own. Now!” he barks, and they do as he says.

“Don’t worry,” Ian whispers to Anna, who’s staring right ahead, shaking slightly. “We’re gonna be fine, I promise. Ms—Ms. Ludlow is still in the building,” he says to the man who, upon further examination, appears to be a guard of some kind. “At least, she should be.”

“I’ll radio her,” the guard says, reaching for a black box on his belt and keeping the gun pointed at them at the same time. “Move and I’ll shoot!” he shouts at Anna, who’s looking back for a possible escape route; she snaps back. He dials something on the radio, holds it up to his ear and says, “Ms. Ludlow?” There’s a pause, and Ian can swear he feels the ground very slightly start to vibrate. “Yes, we have two intruders in containment sector A. A little girl and an older guy,” he looks at Ian’s face for a moment, “who looks pretty familiar.” Another pause; the vibrations begin to grow stronger and stronger. Ian glances behind them and sees another corner leading to another hallway, and considers whether they should risk making a run for it. “I think it’s the guy you invited,” the guard says. “Says you brought him here.” He pauses. “I thought so. What should I--” The voice on the other end of the radio shouts something. “I don’t know. I don’t know how they found it. Should I--” Another yell from the other end. “Both of ‘em? I--” He pauses. “Okay.” He puts the radio in the crook of his neck and addresses Ian and Anna again. “Stay right there,” he orders. “Ms. Ludlow is on her way.”

“Ah—maybe we should--” Ian begins quietly.

“Don’t try anything,” the guard warns, and then he hears the bellowing sound just as the others do. It’s all too familiar to Ian—he’d recognize it anywhere—and he starts to shake, taking the risk of grabbing Anna’s arm and preparing to turn and run. “Oh, hell,” the guard mutters, and says into the radio, “We have a containment breach. There’s an animal loose in here. Ms. Ludlow, if you don’t mind, I’m taking these two and getting the hell out of--”

He’s cut off by the roar that they all hear before they see the animal that produces it. A bellowing roar, like a low scream, echoes through the hall, followed by a boxy head coming around the corner, followed by the rest of the tyrannosaur stomping towards them. Anna starts to turn and run, but Ian grips her arm hard and tells her, “Don’t move! Don’t move!” 

The guard faces the rex and points his gun at the rex, shifting it around as if unsure where to shoot the animal. “I’m trying to disable it!” he shouts into the headset. “We have others! Dammit, I’m trying to--” Probably by accident, the gun goes off, and the bullet lodges in the rex’s scaly tail. The animal roars again, in pain, and the guard starts backing up, still holding up the gun.

“Just close your eyes,” Ian says quietly. “Don’t look, and do not move. We’ll run in a minute.”

“I’m not, I’m not,” Anna whimpers.

The rex steps forward and furiously roars at the guard, who waves his gun and yells, “Stay back, dammit! Get away from--” He cuts off into an interminable scream, one that only comes from a person in indescribable pain, when the tyrannosaur lunges forward and grabs him in its jaws in one bone-crunching snap. It lifts its head and thrashes the man’s body back and forth in jerky motions while the horrific scream continues. After a moment, the screams turn to gurgles and then stop altogether. The rex swallows something and lets something else drop to the floor, a mangled piece of meat that starts to let out a pool of blood and that Ian looks away from, sickened. Anna, who still has her hands in the air, looks very much like she would like to throw up, and Ian lowers her arm and gets ready to run when the tyrannosaur hears something and turns its head. There’s a moment of silence, and the rex makes a noise in the direction of a door in front of it. From behind the door, inside whatever room it leads to, they hear a loud roar not unlike the one they heard seconds ago. The rex bellows in response, bringing about another roar from inside the room. 

“Should we go?” Anna whispers. 

“Wait a second,” Ian answers. “’Til it turns around.” He reads the label on the door; it says TYRANNOSAURUS. He curses under his breath.

Some kind of smashing sound comes from the other room, and the tyrannosaur roars again, encouraging the other animal. There’s a much louder pounding noise followed by a cloud of plaster dust, and just as the second reptilian head pokes out through the new hole in the wall, grunting, a black-suited figure appears at the other end of the hall and freezes. “Emma!” Anna shouts over the crashing of the second rex’s body through the high wall, her voice muffled as she puts her hand over her mouth and nose to keep away plaster dust. “What are we gonna do?”

Emma isn’t what Ian is worried about, so he keeps his eyes on the dinosaurs. As the second tyrannosaur emerges from its cage, roaring triumphantly, he catches a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of swishing blonde hair and a black streak before chunks of the wall start falling everywhere. The two rexes see the movement as well, and both turn their heads to the other end of the hall. “Go,” Ian says urgently, grabbing Anna and running for his life into the next part of the white labyrinth of doors. 

“Why aren’t we following her?” Anna asks loudly, coughing, as they run. 

“Haven’t you had enough T-rex for one day?” he shouts back.

“She ran the other way,” she answers. “Maybe she knows the way out.”

“I’m not risking it,” he says. He looks ahead and halts abruptly; another few steps and they would have run into the gargantuan double doors that the hallway terminates in. “Bingo,” he breathes. “Have you seen these? Are they, ah, locked?”

“All the other doors are,” Anna pants. Malcolm pushes on one of the doors and, with a lot of effort, it swings open. They sidestep through the small gap, and the door neatly shuts behind them, sealing them into a gray-concrete-walled room that looks for all the world, at least in Ian’s science-fiction-loving mind, like a holding bay on a spaceship. On the walls above, the words CONTAINMENT SECTOR A—THIS WAY TO MAIN ENCLOSURE are stenciled in red paint, followed by DECONTAMINATE ONCE THROUGH AIRLOCK. They sprint through the room, and he can’t help thinking briefly of A New Hope despite the circumstances. They reach another set of double doors, glass this time, which appear not to have any handles or locks. A moment of looking along the sides yields a button emblazoned with the words PUSH TO OPEN—TWENTY-SECOND DELAY, which Ian presses. With a hiss, the doors open, and when the two of them pass through a comparatively small, clean room and into a tunnel, it takes them a moment to realize that the heaviness in their lungs and slight sense of unprecedented happiness has returned.

“Oh, wow,” Anna says, looking around. The tunnel they’re in is just as wide as any of the other rooms they’ve been in, and Ian can’t see where it ends—it just leads to blackness. A variety of long metal bars, thick chains and sharp objects are hanging from the wall on their left, and on their right, there are little hoses mounted on the wall, devices that look like hands and shoes are meant to be inserted, a few other hygiene-related apparatuses that Ian can’t bother to identify and twenty unusually thick surgical masks, hanging neatly on a row of pegs along the wall. “What’s that all about?” Anna asks, not about anything in particular. “It looks like they bring dinosaurs through here, but…”

“They have the room, they have the equipment and they sure as hell have the animals,” Malcolm says, giving the metal hanging on the wall a glance. “And those were built for something big. Why would we need to decontaminate?” He starts thinking out loud as Anna further inspects the left wall. “It’s like, uh, it’s like a hospital. Twenty people would be enough to keep tabs on a rex, right? Yeah, I think so. That’s who these are for… Why would they need to clean off? What, is there a contamination? We can’t just wait around in here, we have to follow the tunnel.” He starts to pace. “But there might be more carnivores on the other end. What if--”

“These are for holding dinosaurs,” Anna interrupts. “They look like dog chains. Like someone wanted to keep an animal in place while they… while they…” She sees the sanitation area and snaps. “While they cleaned off!”

“Must be important, then,” Ian decides. “I—I don’t know how long we have, so just, uh, wash your hands and throw on a mask. Should keep us clean enough.” Very quickly, they both wash their hands at the little metal sinks and throw on surgical masks; once Ian has his adjusted, he finds it a lot easier to breathe and decides that the mask must be filtering his oxygen supply to something more breathable. 

“Ready to go,” Anna says, her voice slightly tinny through the mask that’s a little too big for her face but somehow still fits.

“All right,” he says, grabbing her hand and heading down the tunnel. A few lights go on, and they’re heading down a ramp, which flattens out after a long, not-very-steep descent. As they stride ahead, fluorescent lights go on above them, probably motion-activated; the lights are stark and only serve to make the gray concrete tunnel look smaller, in spite of the fact that it must be five stories high at the very least. Anna stays quiet and grim, her face set, and Ian wonders what will happen if they come to a dead end or a place they couldn’t possibly enter. If they do, he decides, they’ll go back, very cautiously, and try to slip out of wherever they are undetected. Emma—or anyone working for her, for that matter—wouldn’t be much help, and since there seems to be a sizable amount of staff around, they created the whole rex situation and they can deal with it by their damn selves. They’ll go through Islands of Adventure and tell whatever management people they can find about the escaped rex, and then they’ll board a plane and get across the country as fast as they can. Whether or not people know what happened doesn’t even matter anymore, only whether they can get out of this place with their lives.  
And then the impact of the words “escaped rex” hit him like a ton of bricks. “We’ve gotta call someone,” he says out loud. He sticks his hand in his back left pocket; it’s empty. “S—t, my phone’s gone,” he exclaims. “Do you have yours?”

She whips out a blue-cased phone from one of the pockets in her shorts. “Who are we calling? I have a little reception. Not much.”

“Someone at IOA. Do you, ah, have Internet? Look up their number. Get someone at the park.”

She expertly swipes and presses at the touch screen, waits for a Web page to load and squints. “I can get their customer service line or their complaints department.”

“Customer service. Just find someone in the park.” A thought strikes him. “What time is it?” 

“Eight-forty-five,” she says. 

“Eight-forty-five A.M.?”

“Yeah. Park’s almost open.”

“Good. Call ‘em. Someone’s got to be there,” he tells her. 

She dials a number and puts the phone to her ear. She waits for a minute, tapping her foot, and then says, “Hello? Is this Islands of Adventure?” She pauses. “Yeah, I’d like to report that, um, something’s going on… I’m calling from the park. From the Pangaea section. No, I’m not staff, I’m a visitor… Is anyone else in the park right now?” She listens for a moment. “People coming in soon? Well, I’m here with my dad, and I think we need the police?”

“Tell them someone’s just been killed,” Ian whispers. “Just say that.”

“Yeah, we just saw someone get killed,” Anna says. “There are a lot of people here, and we’re all in danger… I don’t think you’d believe me. We just need some security guys in here, ‘cause pretty soon--” She pauses and sighs, exasperated. “We just need help, okay? I’m not joking. Just call the police or something!”

“This is Ian Malcolm,” Ian says into the phone. “She’s not joking. We have a major threat to the lives of a lot of people here. We need help as soon as possible."

“I’ll call our security team,” says a muffled male voice on the other end of the line. “We have people to handle stuff like this. Just sit tight. What’s the problem?”

“There are dinosaurs in here,” Anna says, “lots of them. And a T-Rex is coming for us right now. Send as many people as you--”

“Ma’am, there aren’t any T-rexes there,” the man says. “Are you sure there’s a--”

Ian pulls his head away and starts walking again when he starts to feel tremors beneath his feet again. There’s no doubt in his mind about what that means. “We’re in danger,” Anna says, her voice rising. “We’re gonna die in here. Seriously! Send security! With guns!” The man on the other line says something and hangs up. “He said he’ll make a call,” Anna says. 

“To who?”

“Security team.”

“We need the cops,” he says firmly. “Call 911.” 

She punches in three numbers and puts the phone back to her ear. “Hello?” No matter how fast they walk, the tremors in the ground keep getting stronger, and Ian’s sure he hears stomping in the distance behind them. “We’re here in the Pangaea part of Universal,” Anna says, talking quickly. “Someone just died and we need help. Send the police. As many as you can. Send lots of police with guns. And animal control.” She’s panicking and starting to babble. “Send help. Someone just died. We need a lot of people here, we’re at Islands of Adventure, send help, please. Come get us, please, we need help…” She’s started to cry. 

“It’s okay, honey, it’s okay,” Ian pants as he keeps running. “Are they coming?”

“I don’t know!” Anna cries. “You know there are dinosaurs here? One of them’s gonna eat us! Come help us, please…”

Ian pulls her to a halt, seeing the end of the tunnel just as they’re about to hit it. Another tall set of doors, not unlike the ones they passed through a few minutes ago, tower above them; they seem to be a lot sturdier than the first set. He’s about to push them open when, not far at all behind them, he hears a roar, followed by distant but noticeable footsteps. “Let’s go,” he says, shoving one of the doors open. It takes a lot of effort, but it squeaks open, and Ian stares at what’s on the other side for a second before he comes to his senses and pulls Anna through the doorway. As he’s yanking her through, another roar comes from behind them, louder this time, and Anna screams and drops the phone as the door slams behind them. Ian’s brain reels as he looks around them, his body somehow finding even more adrenaline to pump into his veins. Because this isn’t anywhere near what he expected.

They’re in the jungle.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

“Isn’t this—” Anna sniffs, still breathing heavily, and wipes her nose on her sleeve, “Where are we? Are we in the habitat?”

Malcolm nods, his head starting to spin, the words no way out, no way out repeating in his brain. Maybe there would be a way for them to get out if they were in the ceratopsid area, near the entrance to the habitat, but they aren’t. He recognized these woods as soon as they entered them. They’re in iguanadon—and euoplocephalus, he remembers—territory. He starts to panic and looks around for any nearby animals. None are visible, and he can’t hold still long enough to see if any are close to them and camouflaged.  
“I heard the T-rex behind us,” Anna says, starting to cry again. “It’s coming this way.”

“I know,” he says, trying hard to make his brain grasp at rationality, its usual comfort. “We’re, ah, we’re in the back of the park, right?” She nods. “Okay. Okay. If we can’t stop it from getting out of Pangaea, the cops should be somewhere in Islands. Maybe if they--” He stops. “Did you say… did you say the park is open?”

“Probably opening right now,” she sniffs, and then realizes the same thing her father did. “Oh no. There’s people in the park. There’s people in the park… what if it gets out?”

The doors fly open and a huge tyrannosaur head pokes through; Anna screams at the top of her lungs, and Ian grabs her and holds her close, hissing, “Don’t move, don’t move an inch.” The rex stomps through the doors, roaring, and men in uniforms swarm around its feet, shouting and waving around weapons. 

Two of them hold up a huge metal pole with a ring on the end of it, trying in vain to get it around the rex’s neck, and one of the workers shouts, “Get me the team! I need the whole team in the Cretaceous!” into a walkie-talkie. Right on the heels of the first rex, a second dinosaur crashes through the doorway, causing the men around their feet to scatter. Both tyrannosaurs roar angrily and snap at the workers, trying to grab them in their jaws; the workers run in different directions, most of them heading for the doorway.  
“No! Get back here!” Ian shouts, but they’re long gone. Two of the men stand in front of the rexes, waving their arms and obviously trying to stop the animals from advancing. One rex leans down, grabs one of them in its jaws and passes it to the other rex, which grabs the flailing body and chews it up. Ian winces and tries to block out the sickening crunch of bones, looking instead at the other workers, who are disappearing through the exit doors. Now he and Anna are alone, completely alone, and two of his worst nightmares are roaring triumphantly in front of him.

He tries to calculate whether it would be worth it to turn and make a run for their lives. “Anna,” he whispers quietly. “What do you want to do?”

“Can’t let ‘em get to the park,” she says softly. “People are gonna die.”

The two dinosaurs look right at them, tilting their heads and sniffing. “Gotta keep ‘em here, then,” Ian whispers, his voice trembling. “Stall ‘em.”

“How do we do that?”

“I don’t know.” The two rexes start walking around, searching the area for something, sniffing and making low chirping noises at each other, seemingly having forgotten that there are still two humans around. “We can distract ‘em. Run back into the tunnel so they chase us. Get them back in the building and--”

The doors open again, and a familiar figure slips into the jungle, something tiny that Ian doesn’t look at bouncing around her heels. Emma, oxygen mask on her face, still holding that briefcase, looks around for a moment, sees the rexes and then sees Ian and Anna. “Got you, bastard,” she says. She runs over to them and starts waving her arms.

“No!” Ian hisses. 

“Over here!” Emma shouts. “Suppertime!” She grabs Ian’s arm and thrusts him forward. The two tyrannosaurs turn their heads sharply, and for just an instant, Ian can see their eyes. For a brief, fleeting second, recognition, almost human, flashes in their eyes and is quickly replaced by animal rage as they stomp forward, roaring in unison. Emma lets go of him and steps to the side, but instead of lunging for Malcolm, like she clearly expects them to, one rex leans down and lets out the most angry, primal, screaming roar that Ian’s ever heard at her, and snaps its gigantic jaws. Panic flashes on her face, and she turns and starts to run into the jungle, with the tyrannosaurs in hot pursuit, still angrily roaring.

“Dammit!” Ian yells. “Get back here, you moron! Get ‘em back here!” Going against his every instinct, he runs after the disappearing tail of the second rex, Anna quickly following. “She’s going toward the entrance! Get back here!”

It’s not hard to see where the rexes are going; they knock down trees as they stomp forward in pursuit of Emma. When they reach a thick part of the forest, several iguanadon, standing in a group, scatter and make obviously enraged noises at the group of intruders. It seems like it only takes an instant for them to get through the dense forest, and then they’re in front of a gently- flowing river. Malcolm sees Emma ahead of them, with her back to the river; she glances back, and a rex shoves her in with its snout. He hopes against hope that this is it, that they can lead the rexes back now—“I don’t care if they eat her, just don’t get out, please, don’t get out,” his mind begs—but a pair of hands grips the riverbank and, holding her briefcase tightly to her chest, Emma pulls herself out, soaking wet, and starts running again. 

The tyrannosaurs roar in frustration, and one steps across the river with ease. Without thinking, Ian grabs the end of the other one’s tail, and Anna holds onto him tightly. The rex steps across the river and takes the two of them with it; Ian’s ankles hit the riverbank, and the two of them fall to the ground in a heap, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He pulls himself and Anna up, and he’s about to start running again when he sees the little creature on his daughter’s back. “What’s on me? Get it off!” she yells, and Ian whacks the animal—somehow, through all the panic and adrenaline, his brain identifies it as a compsognathus, a compy—as hard as he can. The compy chirps angrily and scrambles to regain its footing on Anna’s shirt, and a second before Ian slaps it again, knocking it to the ground, it sinks its teeth into her shoulder. She swears, grabbing where it bit her, and Ian grabs her hand and starts running again.

There must be at least a hundred hadrosaurs in the valley they’ve reached. Emma, panting and glancing at the ground to avoid tripping on nests, runs straight through, and the rexes go barreling after her. As soon as the hadrosaurs spot the tyrannosaurs, they honk in panic and flee, all at once, like flocks of birds, as far away as possible. As they run through the nearly-empty valley, baby hadrosaurs in their nests squealing in panic and scrambling to get out of their way, Ian feels something tugging his arm backward and sees Anna beginning to slow down. “Come on,” he says, pulling her forward. “Come on, honey, gotta keep going.”

She nods, her eyelids drooping slightly, and they run along; it doesn’t take long for them to reach another set of woods. Without even thinking, they follow the rexes in, running as fast as they can as branches slap their faces and sticks on the ground cut at their ankles. They quickly come across a cluster of ankylosaurs, gathered around a nesting area of some kind, and they swing their tails threateningly and bellow at the group; Emma veers around them, and so do the tyrannosaurs. As they crash back out into the open, Ian suddenly realizes the pain in his chest and his screaming muscles, and he wishes more than anything that he could stop for just a second. But he looks ahead, and as soon as he sees the far wall of the habitat, a walkway and train tracks leading from it, the panic that filled his entire body a minute ago renews itself, and he dashes forward again. Anna’s doing her best to keep up, but she looks exhausted, like it’s becoming increasingly difficult and painful for her to move. Ian pulls her along.

The group of ceratopsids in front of them get out of the rexes’ way, the ground rumbling as they run to the sides and form protective circles around their squealing young. The animals lower their heads, brandishing their razor-sharp horns, but the tyrannosaurs don’t notice them. Emma sees the swamp in front of her too late, and she runs through it, the two rexes pursuing; the thick sludge and two or so feet of water slow Ian down, but they seem to hinder Anna a lot more. He gives up and grabs her in her arms, grunting with difficulty as he carries her to the end of the swamp. A few more feet and they’re right in front of the titanic glass wall; Emma has her back to the glass, and the rexes are snarling at her, swishing their tails.

“Turn around!” Ian yells at her. “Run the other way! There’s another way--” She doesn’t even listen and turns to the glass, grabbing an iron girder and hoisting herself up. “Goddammit!” he shouts in frustration. One of the rexes snaps at Emma, but she dodges it, beginning to climb the wall by using the crosswise poles as handholds and footholds. “What does she think she’s doing? Anna, climb on my back.”

“You going up too?” she mumbles, turning around and grabbing her father’s back. 

“Yeah,” he breathes. “Got a good hold?” She nods. He runs to a spot next to the distracted rexes—they’re still trying to grab Emma in their jaws, and miraculously, she’s somehow still avoiding them— thinks, “Here goes nothing,” and hoists himself up onto the wall, his muscles protesting as he starts to climb the girders. “Anna,” he pants as he forces himself to keep going despite the pain and the effort it takes to breathe. “Listen to me. Do you—do you hear me?”

“Yeah,” she says; her voice is muffled through her mask and because her face is resting on his back, her head lolling to the side. “I—I hear you…”

“I want--- I want you to go get someone,” he says, pausing to pull himself up. He’s gotten about hallway up the wall and starts to climb almost on autopilot. “When I get up there, I’m—I’m gonna get you out of here, and—and I want you to run and get someone to help. Anyone. Okay?” There’s no response. “Anna, stay awake for me.”

“I’m trying, Dad,” she groans. “I’m trying.”

Emma’s already reached the top, holding a girder for dear life; through the glass in front of her, Ian can see the lobby of the building. The rexes keep snapping at her, ramming their heads into the glass, but she’s just above them and they can’t reach her. As Malcolm gets to the same level, a few feet to her left, one of the tyrannosaurs lets out a bloodcurdling roar dripping with rage and throws its entire, scaly green body against the wall. It steps back, shaking itself, and Ian hears the unmistakable sound of cracking glass. The second animal takes a few steps back and does the same, throwing its full weight against the girders. The metal structure shakes, and Ian and Emma scream in alarm and hold tighter to their bars. The rexes make some sort of warbling noise to one another, and both back up simultaneously. Ian grips the bar he’s holding as hard as he possibly can, and both of the giant animals’ bodies hit the wall, making a deafening slamming noise, causing the girders to shake violently and cracks to form in the glass in front of them. Once the metal bars are a bit more stationary, Ian reaches out and swings with all his might at the glass behind the girders, where a series of cracks has formed a jagged circle. He punches repeatedly, as hard as he can, blood starting to drip from his knuckles, until it gives way and a section of glass falls out. 

“Can you get through?” he pants. Anna nods and grabs the girder, slowly pulling herself up so she’s hanging on the pole next to him. Her pain and exhaustion and the sheer effort that this takes is very clearly written on her face, but she somehow manages to grab the edge of the hole, get a good foothold and throw herself at the hole in the wall. Only her torso goes through, and she slips for a second—Malcolm yells in alarm—but she reaches up and, with great effort, pulls herself through the hole and into the lobby. She lies there for a moment, groaning, and then gets up and stumbles through the lobby, disappearing from sight. 

The tyrannosaurs seem to be at the end of their ropes and are attempting to jump up and grab Emma. To hell with her, Ian thinks, and starts sliding over, closer and closer to the hole in the glass. He reaches it soon, and he’s taking a moment to figure out just how to get through the hole in the girders—he’s much bigger than Anna, so it’ll be harder for him—when he hears a screech next to him. The rexes are still slamming their upper bodies into the girders, and Emma’s slipped from her handhold. She screams at the top of her lungs as she free-falls, and Ian relaxes a little from relief, but she reaches out and grabs the next girder down, crying out with fear and pain as she pulls herself up again, the tyrannosaurs snapping at her heels with renewed energy. 

Ian loses his focus on the possible escape in front of him and watches, seizing up with dread, at the two carnivores trying with all their might to pull Emma down. She pulls her legs up, her knees touching her chest, but that doesn’t deter them; she’s only holding herself up with one hand, the other still clutching her briefcase, and it doesn’t appear that she’ll last very long the way she is. She looks up and sees the same thing Ian does—his leg is hanging less than a foot from her arm. “I could pull her up,” Ian realizes, and the thought strikes her at the same time. She looks further up, and her eyes meet his, full of quiet desperation. “Please,” she says, her voice cracking.

He stares down at her, several debates going on in his mind at once, and then he remembers Eddie. He remembers Eddie, and Gennaro, and the tyrannosaur attacking Sarah and Kelly. And, despite everything that’s just happened, one thing is obvious—no one deserves to die like that. He looks down at Emma, who’s rapidly losing her grip and crying out with fear. “I’m not like you,” he says over the bellowing rexes, and she looks back up at him. “I believe in second chances.” He moves his foot closer to her hand, she grips it, and he pulls himself up as far as he can.

It takes a huge amount of effort, and his entire body screams in pain, threatening to give out, but Ian somehow manages to reach out and grab the bottom of the hole in the glass, balanced between it and the girder. Emma pulls herself further up his leg, her weight threatening to pull him down completely. “Drop—your damn— briefcase!” he gets out.

“I can’t!” comes the reply. Ian grits his teeth and, with all of his remaining strength, pulls himself forward, so that he and Emma are hanging on the edge of the hole in the glass. The rexes are still behind them, growling angrily and preparing to strike again, and Ian takes a second to gather his strength before he pulls himself up again. He reaches in, barely able to breathe, and grabs the carpet, forcing himself to crawl forward. The glass scrapes his stomach, and he’s acutely aware that all of the oxygen is gone from his body, everything hurts, his strength is entirely gone, and there’s no way, no way at all, that he can possibly make it through—

And then a gloved hand grabs his and, grunting, the person it’s attached to pulls him and Emma through the hole, and they just lie on the ground for a moment until someone pulls them to the side. A huge crowd of men in uniforms, some white and some blue, rush past him, all holding some kind of weapons in their hands. It’s a surreal sight, and Ian feels almost as if he’s in a dream as he hears crashing, roaring, and angry shouts in the dome behind him. He hears both the noises of a fight in the distance— a shout of, “Tranquilizer! Not guns, tranquilizer! Shoot ‘em both!” drifts to his ears—and Emma’s sobbing, right on the floor behind him, at once. 

One man, wearing a white uniform with ORLANDO ANIMAL CONTROL on the back, stays behind and runs over to him. Gently, he deposits Anna on the ground next to him and helps him sit up. “They’re here, Dad,” the little girl mumbles, her eyelids closed. “They got here, Dad. They got here… I found them… they found us…”

“Good job, sweetheart,” he whispers. She slumps over and rests her head on his sweat-soaked chest.

The man in the uniform grabs one of her limp arms, pulls a syringe out of a white box and injects something into her. “Sir. Sir, can you hear me?” Ian wordlessly nods. “I don’t know what happened to her—”

“Compy bite,” he mutters.

The man pauses. “Yes—well, I’ve never seen this before, and I don’t know if we have the antidote. Seems to be some sort of neurotoxin.”

“It is. Makes you tired.” How that information managed to come back, how his sluggish yet adrenaline-soaked brain pulled back that memory, is beyond him.

“We’ll treat her as soon as we can—”

“When you’re done with the rexes.”

“Of course. When we’re done with the rexes, we’ll treat her. Until then, I’m giving her a stimulant to keep her awake.” He looks over at the habitat area. “They’ve got the animals tranquilized. Shouldn’t take long.”

“She—she’ll be all right?” Ian asks; the unused adrenaline that fills his body is making him shaky and dizzy. 

The man nods. “She will.” There’s a crashing sound behind them. “They downed one of them,” he says. “Everything will be fine. Just stay awake for me, sir.” He moves over to Emma. “Ma’am, are you hurt?”

The roaring on the ground below ceases to a gurgle and then goes silent. Ian listens to the sound and the ensuing commotion as he sits, strokes Anna’s hair and finally lets himself rest.

Author's note: This isn't over! Stay tuned!


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shippy ship ship and a happy ending

Author's note: Ugh, it's so sad, but this thing has to end eventually, so here you go, the last two chapters. IIIIIIIT'S SHIPPING TIME!

Chapter Sixteen

One Year Later

A skill that Ian's acquired and mastered over the years is ignoring reporters. They've been on his lawn ever since he went on that first talk show, and though the amount fluctuates and their reason for coming changes, there's never a shortage of reporters outside Ian Malcolm's home. At first, he talked to them, then he actively avoided them, and finally, he accepted them as a part of his life. Maybe in a few years, when the dust has settled, when they've done the ten-years-since specials about San Diego and Isla Nublar on television, they'll leave him alone. Until then, he just pretends they aren't there, sips his coffee and stares at the horribly-animated stegosaurs on his TV.

One of the dinosaurs lets out a sound not unlike a humpback whale, and Ian snorts and swishes his mug to stir the coffee around. Over the buzz and chatter that comes with four camera crews on one small apartment-complex lawn, he hears a distinct knock on the door and rolls his eyes. "I said no press allowed inside," he shouts.

"Ian?" comes an unmistakable voice on the other side of the door. He freezes; it can't be. "I'm not a reporter. I'm Sarah. Can I come in?"

Slowly, he puts his cup down, gets up and, heart pounding, opens the door. Sarah Harding, her frizzy red hair in a ponytail, a couple more lines on her face since the last time he saw her, is standing on the doorstep, holding a tape recorder. She smiles pleasantly. "Hey!" She leans forward before he can say a thing and hugs him, laughing a little, and he laughs as well, in utter disbelief. "God, I haven't seen you in years!" She pulls back and grabs something hanging around her neck. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah." Still shocked, Ian wordlessly holds the door open for her; she steps in and starts looking around, and he shuts and locks the door. "What, um… what brings you here?"

"I missed your mess," she says, motioning to the heaps of books, videotapes and papers around the main room. She laughs a little. "No, wait, I remember. It's not a mess, it's—"

"—organized chaos," he finishes, smiling.

"As always," she laughs. "Seriously, though, I'm here for… well, I hoped you'd be willing to give an interview."

"I thought you said you weren't a reporter."

"I need a primary source for my new book—I'm doing it on tyrannosaur behavior. I was just going to discuss the behavior of the animals we saw on Sorna, but now that more rexes are around, I have another source. To verify my guesses, gain more information. You know what I'm talking about?"

"You want me to tell you about the way the rexes at Pangaea behaved?"

"That's the goal."

"Yeah, sure. Sit down." He motions to the kitchen table. "Just a second, let me turn this off." He grabs the remote and switches off the television; a scene of two angry stegosaurs about to fight each other goes black, and he takes a seat across from Sarah at the table.

"Dinosaur documentaries?" she says, looking across at the TV. "Since when do you watch those?"

"Since I'm taking a break from writing and nothing's on." He's a little apprehensive—she's his ex-girlfriend, after all, and those kinds of interactions are rarely ever pleasant—but she seems just fine, used to him just like she always was. At least things will be easier without tension.

"I mean, I thought they gave you panic attacks," she says. "You couldn't even look at pictures of dinosaurs the last time I saw you. What changed?"

He shrugs. "Been going to therapy for a few months."

"Really."

"I can't let my past control me, I guess. Can't let what happened hold me back forever."

She smiles. "Good for you."

"Yeah. I guess all of this—I guess it made me see that stuff happens whether I want it to or not, and stuff might be, y'know, scarring, but I can't change the past and I can't just hope the scars go away on their own. I've gotta help myself if I want to get better, I can't get stuck in—in the past, in what happened, and then just make myself get used to all the pain. I'm just a lot freer, now that the islands—and Orlando now, too—don't own me, 'cause I won't let them." He stops himself; he's already slipped into the trap of thinking she's still his partner, someone who would be willing to listen to that, but she probably has no interest in his mental health. Embarrassed, he quickly adds, "I'm getting philosophical again. How have you been?"

"Let's chat after the interview," she suggests. She takes a tape recorder on a lanyard off of her neck, presses a button and sets it on the table.

"Well, what do you want to know?" he asks, leaning back and getting comfortable.

"Well, I know the story. I know the details of what happened."

"You've been following the investigation? My testimonies?"

"Yes, but there are some things I couldn't find out from interviews and newscasts. Let's start with the carnivores. There were lots of different species, both Jurassic and Cretaceous, right?" He nods. "They were all contained every minute of the day?"

"Yep."

"In a building near where visitors frequently went?"

"In a building next to what would have, uh, been a frequently-traversed area, yes. On a hill above the herbivore habitat," Ian says.

"Hidden because no one would go near the park if they knew there were rexes there."

"Would you go to a place full of, ah, predatory dinosaurs? Especially after the Incident?"

"Were Tyrannosaurus and Compsognathus the only carnivore species you encountered?"

"Yes. We only saw the compy for a minute, when it bit Anna. You heard about that? How it broke out of its cage because the rexes broke through the wall on their way out? Just another thing to add to the suit."

"Actually, I looked into that. I've seen her toxicology report, it's interesting stuff. She's made a full recovery, I heard?"

Ian nods. "Still added her injury to the damages. Not as serious as two people dying, of course. But, ah, still, a little girl got hurt. Got hit with a neurotoxin from the bite, you know."

"All right. So the ones you saw were the only ones that escaped?" she asks.

"Other than the euoplocephalus. The one that charged at us—you know, it thought we were in its territory— found the door and, ah, found its way into the tunnel and the building. But that wasn't a carnivore."

"You didn't even see any other apex predators?"

"Nope," Ian sighs. "But they found at least three other species of large carnivores, I think. The investigation is still going on—have you—have you thought of going to try to get a look at, uh, seeing their behavior firsthand?"

"Nah. All I get to see is the details they show on the news. The police found holes in the walls in front of both tyrannosaur cages. Is that how they got out?"

"With assistance. One from a euoplocephalus, and one from its—those two rexes were mates, right?"

"Yeah. Explains their cooperation, doesn't it?"

"They did seem oddly coordinated."

"I saw the security footage of them smashing the habitat wall." She gets that glint in her eye, the one that she always gets when she's excited about a new discovery. "I've been playing the clip over and over. This is even better than them pushing our trailer over the cliff. This is… I'm off track. How often were they taken to the habitats to hunt?"

"I have no idea. Watch one of Emma's interviews. Pretty often, though, I'd guess. Those—those animals were quick breeders. It'd take a fair amount of herbivore buffets to keep that kind of population in check."

"Were they limited to one kill per hunting session?"

"I don't know. I assume so."

"You said you saw the tunnel that was used to take carnivores to their sections?" He nods. "Cretaceous carnivores went to the Cretaceous area, same with Jurassic animals, right?"

"In the interest of authenticity," he says, making air quotes around the last word.

"Well, if they matured that fast, of course their genes are messed with and it wouldn't have been authentic. They couldn't hope to create an environment that was exactly like the Mesozoic, like they must have been trying to, it's just not possible. I'm just considering all the factors at play here. These animals were carefully controlled when they were being brought to the habitat?"

"With huge teams of people and all kinds of weapons. I know for a fact I saw, ah, tasers in the tunnel. Which solves the mystery of why they hated their handlers so much."

"And Emma."

"She definitely had a part in making those animals' lives hell," he agrees. "It's funny. She really did want to study them and—and learn about them, but she wanted to do it the fast and profitable way, not the right way. If there even is, um, a right way, with living dinosaurs."

"Do you know what they were fed, when they weren't eating other dinosaurs?" she asks, and he describes the feeding system in the rex's habitat. For nearly two hours, Sarah asks about the animals' speed, how much they ate, how they killed—that's not very pleasant to describe, but for once, Ian can talk about death by tyrannosaur without having a panic attack—and everything else about the rexes and the way they acted that she can think of. They keep talking when she's done; Sarah tells him about her recent field work in Kenya and extensive research on tyrannosaurs. He talks about the research he's doing to fine-tune his theory on natural and mechanical system interaction, how he's supplementing it with the events at Pangaea—"Fantastic example of how nature breaks free no matter how much you try—try to contain it. It's not hard to extrapolate what would've happened with the herbivores, even without carnivores around," he says earnestly—and his possible lecture series about his theory once it's published. He might, he says, even expand it into a book.

"So you're still chasing predators and I'm still doing equations," he says after nearly three hours of catching up. "Nothing's really changed, has it?"

"Not really," she sighs. "Married anyone interesting lately?"

"No," he laughs. "Don't even have a girlfriend. How about you?"

She shakes her head. "Hasn't been high on my priority list. Tell the truth, I'm getting a bit old for this new-relationship stuff."

"Don't be ridiculous. You're beautiful."

"I know," she laughs. "I'm not talking about attracting someone. I just don't feel like flirting and playing games and wondering all day if someone will call back. You know?"

"I know."

"I just want to be comfortable," she says, looking around. "And to tell the truth, I kind of miss… I just miss having one constant in my life. Having the same place and person to come back to every day. It might not have ended well, but I liked what we had." She looks like she wants to say something else, but doesn't.

"I did, too," he says. There's a pause; Sarah avoids his eyes. "I never asked," he says casually. "How do you like Santa Fe?"

"It's nice and quiet," she says, looking at him again. "Seems like a good place to take a sabbatical."

"Got one coming up?"

"Taking one soon," she says. "This seems like as good a place as any, at least for a little while. And… well, you know. I did leave something pretty important in this apartment when I left. I think I'd like to get it back." She smiles, leans across the table and hugs him again; he hugs her back, unable to control the grin on his face. Sarah opens her mouth to say something else, but she's interrupted by a loud voice from outside the apartment.

"No," says a young voice, loudly and firmly. "No interviews. I'm not answering any questions."

Ian smacks his forehead. "I forgot she was coming today," he groans. "I'm sorry, Sarah, you know how I am with remembering-"

"Is that Anna?" Sarah asks. "I haven't seen that kid in ages. You think she wants to see me again?"

"Pretty sure she does," he says, getting up. "She loved you. You guys used to, ah, read dinosaur books and stuff together, remember?"

"I remember. I guess you kept your visitation rights?"

"Had to fight for 'em, but yeah. She actually wants to visit me more often now—isn't that great? Funny what it took to make us start to get closer. Listen to her," he says; she's telling a reporter outside that she's not available for comment. "Dodging reporters like a professional. Bet she—bet she learned it from both of us." There's an urgent knock on his door. "Hi, Anna," he calls. "One second." He turns back to look at Sarah. "By the way. Do you—would you want to go out to dinner or something tonight? I mean, if you're available?"

She smiles. "I'd love that," she says. "I'd really love that."


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

Emma Ludlow does not enjoy her current living arrangement. Her trial is still pending, as the investigation of the events at her park still hasn't been completed. She posted bail when they took her in—she had enough left in the company's treasury for that, at least—but somehow, when she tried to buy a plane ticket to Europe, they caught her, and now she has to stay in jail. Quite a nice jail, better than public ones, and well worth the expense to be sent there. But Emma is now an inmate, and she's not very proud of that title, to say the least.

She does have one solace, though, and it serves as an excellent distraction from the details of her upcoming trial, about which she's updated nearly every day—so far, they're charging her with two manslaughter counts, criminal negligence, a few misdemeanor counts because of employees' and the little girl's injuries, second-degree assault and intent to commit murder, to name a few. If not for her secret, she might go mad. But she refuses to; she's nursing her secret, keeping it carefully hidden so that no one else can take it from her.

She walks quietly in double-file with the rest of the inmates, an armed guard walking behind the group to supervise them, along the dirt path. One of the benefits of a jail for the well-off is a lovely woods and daily walks through it for exercise. Emma feels the hunk of cafeteria meat in her jumpsuit's pocket, and when she's sure it's still there, takes a step to the side, toward the woman next to her. Without looking to the side or saying a word, she sticks her foot out, and when the red-haired woman takes another step, she trips and goes sprawling to the ground. She immediately starts screeching and lets out various curses and threats—this particular woman isn't well-known for stability—and grabs the ankle of the inmate behind her. When the two start shouting and swinging at each other, the guard rushes over and the other inmates gather in a circle, so no one notices when Emma slips away.

She runs as quietly as she can until she's hidden by trees and can't hear the fight anymore, and then quickly and deliberately finds the spot in the woods that she's visited enough to know the exact location of. When she sees her secret, she kneels on the ground and pulls out the hunk of meat. "I brought you something," she whispers. Her little secrets, the three tiny animals, see what she's brought and descend on it, quarreling about who gets which part. She watches as they eat; they're adorable, and looking at them, she can't be more proud of what she's created. "You've grown," she whispers, smiling. The bipedal, scaly animals are getting bigger each time she sees them, and soon, she may even be able to tell what species they are.

One of them, satisfied with its portion, goes back to the nest to eat. Emma hasn't had enough time to build them a proper nest, so she used the briefcase that she brought their eggs here in—the bribe she slipped the guard to keep it was hefty but well-spent—and they've suited themselves to it well enough. As the two other babies tussle over the remaining meat, she carefully studies the third one, looking at its tiny face, its little claws, its muscular legs. "I think you may be rexes," she says to herself. She was in too much of a hurry to tell their species when she grabbed their eggs from the hatchery; she wasn't thinking of anything but keeping her creations alive. And not only are they still alive, they're flourishing. Now that they're the only remainder of her dream, she's been watching them very carefully, and although they're really just products, she's developed sort of a liking for them.

"Tyrannosaurus or Carcharodontosaurus," she decides. "Must be, with those head shapes. I'll have to see how big you get." She reaches out and lightly pets the head of the eating dinosaur. It makes a high-pitched sound, something like a menacing purr, and snaps at her finger, leaving a tiny tooth mark and a dribble of blood on the tip of her finger. She winces and inspects her wound. "Feisty little fellow, aren't you?" she says. The animal chirps and, finishing its meal, gets up and watches its siblings tear their little prey in half. It watches for a moment, cocking its head, and then goes to join the kill.

The End

Author's note: That's the end! Thanks to everyone who faved, followed, commented on or read this for your support. It all really means a lot to me. Don't forget to follow my blog at raptordash.wordpress.com, and stay tuned, as I'll definitely write more. Thanks again!


	18. Park map

I drew a map of Pangaea, but I couldn't put it on here because the Archive is still screwy. Here's where to find it:

http://raptordash.wordpress.com/2014/11/22/map-of-pangaea/


End file.
